


Long Exposure

by polche



Series: Everyone Deserves a Second Chance [1]
Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Manipulation, Enemies to Friends, M/M, ToS2 Does Not Exist, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-11-19 03:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 31,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11305167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polche/pseuds/polche
Summary: "Lloyd. Let's stop him.""...Not 'Let's destroy him.'?""I'm sorry. But I keep thinking, if only Mithos would stop what he's doing and apologize to those who've been suffering like Marble. An apology isn't enough for what he's done, but if he really did feel that way... I'd want to save him.""...If he really starts thinking that way, I won't stop you. But if he doesn't, I won't forgive him for hurting my best friend.""...I understand. I'm sorry, Lloyd. And... thank you."Mithos tries to convince Genis to join him at his side, by becoming someone the boy can't live without - but who's charming who, exactly?





	1. Indignation Judgment

**Author's Note:**

> I meticulously checked a full completionist LP several times over (so far, and I'm positive I'll go over things again) to make sure I get things right for this. I change a few things here and there, and I add some scenes where I feel they should be. Some of the dialogue will be taken straight from the game, but I hope I've put enough of a spin on things that it's still an exciting ride.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos infiltrates the group trying to foil his plans.

Mithos’ bond with Celsius snaps, and with it his patience. That’s the third severed mana link, and the sixth Summon Spirit he’s lost to those bumbling fools. They have no idea what they’re doing, and they must be stopped. Mithos growls to himself. _If you want something done right…_

They’re in Tethe’alla, since Celcius lives near Flanoir. He needs to make a scene, because that’s where they’ll be. And he’s angry. Two birds and all that. What would be the most beneficial location to destroy? Of course, the birthplace of this generation’s most heinous anti-half-elf legislation, and a den of bigotry throughout all of its miserable existence: Ozette. He’ll make it a symbol.

He descends to the world of Tethe’alla, a small speck in the sky too far to see from the ground, and gathers mana. It fills up his small body, coats him thickly, crackles and pulsates under his skin. The maelstrom of magic activity in and around him almost compares to the bedlam in his head, and it’s almost a relief, it feels like he thinks he should, but it’s going to flay the skin off his bones if he doesn’t release it soon, so he shapes it, molds it into a beam of light with his hands and throws it to the earth. It shimmers and warps, a clean, straight beam unable to hold that much power. Tendrils peel off the main shaft and fall to the earth beside it, tossing up rocks and severed branches with their impact. The light both whistles and roars as it descends, and where it hits the ground it melts it, waves of solid mana spreading outward, flooding the little forest village with a dense and unsurvivable blanket of heat and pain. Mithos laughs as he loses height, his body struggling to bear the strain of what he just unleashed, and he finally crumples in a heap among burning beams and bushes, the air thick with smoke and mana, and the floor littered with bodies.

His lackeys clean up what few survivors he’s left in the time he lies there, before the Chosen and her allies find him, just as he expected.

The large man and Kratos’ son ensure the fire doesn’t touch him, while the Chosen and the two half-elves keep him company, letting him slowly regain his strength until he’s able to sit and finally stand up on his own again. Since his body was used as a mana conduit, it suffered burns appropriate to the carnage he unleashed, and his fall dirtied the remains of his clothes, to the point where no one can tell he came from anywhere else.

“What happened here?” the boy, Lloyd, asks, his eyes wide with shock from the destruction.

Mithos does his best to pretend to be in shock as well, even though this hardly compares to the worst he’s seen. At least his physical exhaustion helps mute his reaction.

“I don’t really know… ” he says, and the youth in his voice almost surprises him. It’s been a long time since he used this form. “Suddenly, lightning fell from the sky, and angels attacked the village…” They had it coming, though. They’ve had it coming for years.

“Angels?” the older half-elf repeats. Her expression turns even more grave than it already was.

“They had wings. Those with wings are angels… right?”

At first, he implemented the wings in the angel design because he thought they’d be necessary for flight, but he kept them even after changing the structure to utilize a combination of Sylph and Gnome’s mana to allow levitation, because he liked the aesthetic, and he considered the image of the shadow of a bird blocking out the sun iconic. Not to mention, it increased the size of their silhouette, making his angels more imposing, while keeping them graceful for the positive connotations. Mithos isn’t one to brag, but his design sense was impeccable.

Kratos’s son stomps around complaining about how rude and evil Cruxis is, while other members of the team quietly discuss what this means, both for the world and themselves. Mithos keeps an ear out for anything that stands out, but they’re boring and selfish, so nothing does.

“I’m impressed you survived. Are you the only survivor? What's your name?” Tethe’alla’s Chosen asks him gently.

None of them know the whole story, so Mithos figures telling a few truths won’t hurt. Not too many, of course. “My name is Mithos. I didn’t live too close, so…”

The boy Chosen immediately loses interest the moment he hears Mithos has a boy’s name. He’d heard the reports, but this was a little much. If he’d been a Chosen of the declining world, he would have been scrapped immediately.

“You have the same name as Mithos the Hero!” Lloyd says, nearly shouts. If Mithos had any respect for him, he’d be tempted to make a snarky comment, but it’d probably fly right over this one’s head.

“...Wait, are you a half-elf?” the half-elf boy asks, right in front of everyone.

Mithos shakes his head, trying to use his eyes to communicate to the boy not to ruin his chances of infiltration five minutes after they’ve met.

“Relax,” the half-elf woman says with a smile. She, too, isn’t bothered. Does the whole group already know?

“It’s ok, we’re all friends!” Sylvarant’s Chosen says with a cheerful smile on her face.

“Humans and half-elves as friends?” It sounds like a utopian dream, which means it’s complete hogwash. “You’re lying.”

The half-elf boy shakes his head and grins. “No, it's true. My sister and I are part of this group.”

Mithos stares at him.

“Your reaction is understandable,” the tall, broad man with the polite voice says. “I've heard that the village of Ozette is particularly known for its contempt for half-elves. If you lived an isolated life in this village, you must have suffered.” He’s human. He has _no_ idea.

Before Mithos can tell him so, he hears the sound of footsteps, and he turns in the direction they come from.

“What happened here?”

It’s a dwarf. His voice is breathless and full of disbelief. Next to him, and Mithos can’t believe his luck, is one of the prototype vessel automatons. Clearly this dwarf must be a defector, and it’ll be good to know what he thinks he knows, but the automaton distracts him. They were made to look like her, and it’s uncanny. Its face is rounder, more youthful, and its hair is styled differently, and of course there’s no life behind those eyes, but it looks so much like his sister, he feels sick.

It’s mana signature is similar too, and for a moment, he can almost imagine her to be standing next to him again, smiling, gentle and kind. He has half a mind to reach out to it, his brain too full of fog and static to tell him otherwise. His hand feels leaden, heavy as the chains tying him to his past.

“Mithos, you should come with us,” Lloyd says, and Mithos notices the boy’s hand is on his shoulder.

Mithos’ head snaps up, and he pretends it’s the shock from being accepted even though he’s a half-elf.

“That doesn't matter. Besides, what are you going to do if you stay here and the angels come back?”

The half-elf boy hops in place with unrestrained excitement. “Lloyd’s right! Let's all go together!” he says, and he extends his hand.

Mithos tries to mute the manic grin he feels bubbling up from inside to a more subtle smile, and he takes the boy’s hand. They’re so trusting, so optimistic. Infiltrating them is going to be so much easier than he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's gotta be a reason why, if Mithos can unleash giant village-destroying lightning bolts, he doesn't use the things all the time. You know he'd be Extra enough to want to.


	2. Ice Tornado

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos (dis)connects with Genis on the subject of family.

The dwarf wasn’t a high-enough level operative to have ever come face to face with Lord Yggdrasill, so he had little knowledge of Cruxis’ inner workings. Meaning he was too insignificant to pose a threat. Still, he thought the divine judgment Mithos rained down on Ozette was his fault. It was laughable, but Mithos managed to contain himself. Meaning also that the dwarf had no chance of knowing Mithos’ true identity, believed his sob story and suggested his own home as temporary reprieve.

Despite his misgivings about having to spend any more time near that doll with his sister’s face, Mithos accepted the dwarf’s hospitality. He tried to weasel out by using being a half-elf as a reason people might not want him around, but of course the dwarf doesn’t care. At least he got to spend time with the half-elf boy, Genis. He reminds him of himself.

After Genis had tired of horseplay, Mithos sat with him and talked about various things that might be on a boy’s mind. Genis did most of the talking, excitement still managing to break through the exhaustion on his face. Like Mithos, he’d never had a friend his age and race before. Maybe if Mithos had a friend like Genis when he was that age…

Then Genis asked him about his family, and Mithos couldn’t keep the blank void that had long replaced his sadness off his face as he said everyone was dead. Genis put his hand on Mithos’ back in support and said he was the same. From the boy’s scrunched-up eyebrows and wavering glance at the ground, it was clear for him the emotion was still raw.

“It was a long time ago,” Mithos said, and he gently removed Genis’ hand from his back, and put his own on the boy’s head. “I’ve done my grieving, so you don’t need to worry,” he said with a smile.

It’s that conversation that plays in his head when he sees the boy rise from his bed in the Altamira hotelroom. As an angel, he doesn’t need sleep, and night-time is a good chance to observe people at a state of vulnerability - and he doesn’t need to worry about the girl Chosen; she’s proven the most trusting of them all already.

He follows Genis outside, and stands quietly beside him as he looks up at the light-polluted night sky.

“Are you having trouble sleeping?” he asks softly, after some time.

Genis nods. His brows are drawn and his eyes are looking somewhere far away. “I’ve been doing some thinking,” he mumbles. Mithos gives him some time to elaborate, but he stays silent.

It must be about Raine. Genis has no experience with that kind of loss. _Yet_ , Mithos’ mind supplies cynically. Mithos shakes the thought out of his head.

“We…” He hesitates. Is now a good moment? But the situation means Genis must be able to relate. “We’re kind of alike, aren’t we?” he says, after all. “I was raised by my older sister, too.”

Genis looks at him properly, and it’s Mithos who looks away.

“What’s she like?” Genis asks.

“She’s the best. ... _Was_ the best. She was the most kind and caring sister a brother could hope for, and she was so smart, and really strong, in the most important ways…” Mithos sighs. It still hurts, after all these years, but it feels good to tell someone who might understand.

Genis nods, and puts his hand on Mithos’ back again.

“I was sad when she died,” Mithos mumbles, and the words keep tumbling out of his mouth. “But even more than that, I was angry. I couldn't forgive the humans who killed her!”

Genis’ hand stiffens against his back, and Mithos knows he made this too awkward too fast, but he can’t stop his emotions now. He turns to Genis, grabs his shoulders.

“You understand my feelings, don't you?” he asks - _begs_. He hates himself, he shouldn’t do this, he needs to regain control -

“Y-yeah, but…” _But you’re going too far, Mithos._

Mithos lets go of Genis’ shoulders, steps back. He shakes his head. It’s going all wrong, he has to stop himself before he scares Genis, makes him hate him.

“I'm sorry, this wasn't what I meant to say. I'm going to go walk for a bit,” he says, and he runs off to the seaside.

Genis watches him throw pebbles into the waves for half an hour before he yawns, and Mithos hears the hotel doors not too long after.

Mithos sits down and watches the reflections of the Altamira night lights warp in the water. At times like these, he wishes he could cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think that, because everything happened so much and so fast, Mithos probably hasn't emotionally matured very much since he became an angel.


	3. Holy Lance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos responds to a call for aid.

Mithos said he was out on a walk, that he wouldn’t go far, just around town. Neil told him to take care. He is. He’s taking care of business in Welgaia, hearing Pronyma’s report on Kratos’ most recent actions. He’s moving around more, seems to be looking for something. But he hasn’t made contact with any member of Genis’ group since. Mithos is not reassured. He dismisses the Desian, casts a glance at his sister in her mana cocoon as he picks at the skin on his lips while he thinks about his next course of action. Things are happening fast now, after 4000 years. The Sylvarant Chosen is a close match, but that idiot Lloyd doesn’t know when to let go for the greater good, and now those ignorant fools are trying so hard to undo all his hard work. And on top of that, to think it was Yuan all along. That bastard.

A flash of light and the two-headed avian appears before him, interrupting his musing.

“Mithos,” its voice calls surprised, “I thought you called.”

He’s halfway through a scoff when he remembers he gave his flute to Genis for safekeeping, and he rises without thinking.

“Come,” he says, and he teleports to a hangar.

It takes him minutes, agonizing - no, just normal - minutes, to get there. Aska knows where they are, and Mithos quickly tries to calculate how long it should take a lower lifeform to get there, before disregarding it all, and just going. It’s very fortunate indeed that his ascendant form can withstand the cold, the pressure and the lack of oxygen it takes to go as fast as he wants to.

He narrows his eyes when he and the Summon Spirit reach their destination, and he takes a single moment to sneer. They shouldn’t have any business with Rodyle at this point, unless it had something to do with those “extracurricular activities” Pronyma complained about every now and then. No matter. He raises a hand to decimate the ugly dome, but catches himself just before, and chuckles to himself. It wouldn’t do to make a scene now.

“Aska, would you do the honors?”

The bird shrieks and collects the light around it, its body brightening, glowing like the sun, before it releases concentrated beams of that energy and heat at Rodyle’s precious facility, disintegrating its roof. The lack of barrier between the in- and outside lets loose the shrieks of dragons. Mithos sighs and shakes his head. Rodyle might have some aptitude with expheres, but he keeps terrible pets. He takes his rheaird for a sharp nosedive into the melting hole.

Poor Genis. His group has been fighting a whole flock of hatchlings for a while now, it seems. Most of the humans have more than a scratch or two, and if Mithos had any sensory distastes left, he’d say it smelled horrible. The stench of seawater, mixed with dragon saliva, human blood, charred flesh. Someone had vomited, too. Mana concentrated thickly where the battle was being fought, and the noise. It's all very nostalgic. He tries to replace the grimace that naturally fell to his face with a look of sober concern before he comes into view, and he’s sure he succeeds.

“Give them a hand, Aska,” Mithos says as he passes the dripping edge of the roof glasswork.

Aska immediately obliges, burning a hole through the young dragon that almost got the upper hand on the small girl with the big axe. Mithos himself decides to help out as well, restraining himself as much as he can to reduce the heat output of his fireballs. It still scorches the scales right off one of the dragons, but luckily Genis’s lovely friends are a little distracted and don’t pick up that he’s not supposed to have that kind of power.

“Mithos!” Genis’s prepubescent voice reaches his ears.

Mithos makes sure his smile stays hidden inside. He’s sure only that girl Chosen can hear, other than him, and he’s not supposed to, but Genis calls just for him anyway. Even if this whole situation is a mess and nothing’s gone to plan, at least the boy has been a pinprick of light in the darkness. If he could get the girl as a vessel, and the boy as his fifth - no. No, if he could get the boy on his side, he’d be his  _ only _ Seraphim. He’d gladly watch Kratos die in a ditch these days, and Yuan didn’t even care about Martel anymore. Pity they still had some use.

“Genis!” he calls back, and tosses the boy a wing pack.

From the flooded control room, Mithos can tell Rodyle won’t be playing around anymore. If this group of idiots killed him, they’ve done him a favor. He wishes he could destroy the ranch like he did Ozette, but then his darling friends probably wouldn’t trust him anymore, and he wants information. He might want to let Genis live the lie just a little longer, too.

When they’re all up in the sky, of course Genis is the sharp one that wonders where he got his rheairds. It’s good that Genis’ group went back to tell him what was up when they returned from the Palmacosta Ranch, otherwise he’d have to come up with a more creative lie than “I borrowed it from the Renegades”. At least the physical act of lying is easy, especially when all you have to do is act confused and scared and weak, even if he cast those parts of him off a long, long time ago.

Down safely on the ground, Mithos allows himself to be returned to Neil, and simpers an apology about running off without telling. It’s pathetic, but the pity points win him so much easy trust it’s almost funny.

Genis gives back the flute Mithos loaned him, and nearly bursts into tears when he notices the tubes have cracked.

“It’s broken,” Mithos mutters. The gaping void in his chest turns into an all-consuming fire. That was the last thing he had of his sister’s. He spent so much time taking such good care of it, making sure the tube structure didn’t degrade, keeping up the varnish, tying new ropes when the old ones tattered too much to hold the tubes together. His sight blurs and it takes all he’s got not to gather mana for an explosion.

“I’m so sorry!” Genis says with such emphatic hurt, it breaks through Mithos’ blind rage. “I know how important it was!”

He doesn’t. He can’t. But Mithos supposes he understands the best approximation, given his experience.

Mithos takes a few moments to breathe, to put the mask back on.

“No, it's all right. The flute may be broken, but my memories of my sister are still intact,” he forces himself to say. That much is, at least, true, and he can’t afford to ruin his chances now. He would wait another four thousand years, but if there’s any chance of fixing things now, he’ll take it.

He holds the remains of his sister’s flute in one hand, and Genis carefully, hesitantly, seeks out the other with his own. Mithos forces his grief down, he has more productive things to do. He’ll let himself be upset later. For now, he tries to focus on what his supposed friends are saying, and responding appropriately, while planning his next steps. Genis’ fingers feel warm around his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's hard work remaining calm when you have a lot of emotions.


	4. Nurse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos deals with the fallout from the twisted germination.

Genis’ face almost makes it worth it. Contorted with worry, his big, blue eyes wet with the promise of tears. But it’s not. Even Genis’ face isn’t worth the humiliation of having to be doted on, cared for, having to actively stop his superior body from healing itself, having to focus so hard on remaining hurt, just so he won’t be discovered, all because his stupid instincts kicked in. He wishes he destroyed the blasted thing himself when it proved itself insufficient.

But no, he didn’t destroy it, he didn’t keep a close enough leash on Yuan, and the perfect vessel is dying. Everything keeps going wrong, and it’s always their fault. Every bad decision made, every foiled plan, everything has Lloyd at its very center. At least his body’s impulse decision endeared Genis and his stupid team to him.

“You’re a really nice guy,” Lloyd said.

“You’re… kind,” Presea said.

“You’re awesome!” Genis said.

They don’t know he hates the doll more than he has spent seconds in this miserable world.

If he could fight alongside them without having his cover blown, maybe he could keep a closer eye on them, but that would require an exphere, and careful regulation of his strength, and they keep fighting people who know him, so it would be so, so much harder to stay undetected. He already has worries that the idiot boy Chosen suspects foul play of some sort, so he isn’t going to make things harder on himself. At least he has faith that Genis believes his lies, and if he has Genis, he has Lloyd, and if he has Lloyd…

He allows Genis to change his bandages while the group talks about the girl Chosen’s condition. He volunteers eagerly because Raine is a little quiet, which is odd as she’s normally the one to perform medical aid, but Mithos isn’t going to complain about getting an attempt to further pull that impressionable boy over to his own side. When Altessa makes the diagnosis, CACI, he grits his teeth. It would be. But then, that might be why she’s the best vessel so far.

“Oh no, did I hurt you?” Genis asks, ever the worrier. Mithos had forgotten he’s close enough to notice even the minute changes in his demeanor.

“No, no, it’s ok, don’t worry.” Mithos gives him a small smile, the one that raises his cheeks just a little, and he tilts his head a little towards his shoulder. Look like someone who’s trying not to be bothered by something. The girl Chosen is very good at this kind of smile.

Genis actually looks a little startled, but he quickly regains his composure and continues patching Mithos up, even more carefully than before. He’s learned well from his sister, and he has steady hands. He applies the gauze evenly, and wraps the bandages tight but not restrictive, and his touches are so painfully tender.

It really is _almost_ worth having saved that pathetic failed vessel.

Of course Altessa doesn’t know how to help the girl. It’s a rare condition, and when any of the mana lineage suffered it, it hadn’t been a dwarf helping out. But there’s a library in Sybak, that has information about the Age of Mithos the Hero, that might be able to shed a little more light.

_There’s_ another place he’d like to destroy. Sybak is a blight, not just for its appalling treatment of his people, but for its research on magitechnology as well. For a place supposed to house the smartest minds Tethe’alla has to offer, it’s remarkably short-sighted. But Genis’ eyes light up when Mithos mentions he knows about it, so he forces a smile and agrees to go, pretends to be excited, even as his stomach twists and flips inside of him.

The information those idiots need isn’t there either. Mithos was thorough in making sure precious little of his exploits survived, and what little that did went through rigorous editing to make sure the Church could be established. The only thing Genis and his friends can gather from the books in Sybak is that one of Mithos’ companions also suffered the crystallization. It doesn’t even mention that it was Martel - entirely on purpose. After all, a Goddess, suffering from a mortal illness? Perish the thought.

The red-haired Chosen mentions the royal family has some books stashed, though, specifically about the Hero and his journey. Ah, what a shame that he and the king aren’t on such good terms right now, and if they went now, they’d certainly be arrested and likely killed.

Mithos seethes. He needs to see this collection. Of course he has the Church wrapped around his finger, but the thing with people who think they have power is that they always want more, and if they have any intelligence whatsoever, they’ll utilize the consolidation and spread of information to get it - like Mithos himself has done. Unfortunately, even Genis agrees that it’s too dangerous for an innocent, exphere-less little boy like Mithos to join the infiltration attempt, and Mithos is put on the first rheaird back to Altessa’s. He tries to insist to stay, at first, but the boy Chosen is entirely too sharp for his own good, and Mithos can tell he’s watching him, doesn’t trust him, suspects he’s not who he says he is. Fine. Mithos can see himself out.

Genis won’t have it, and insists the whole group take him back. It’d be “too dangerous”, and Genis doesn’t want to see him hurt again. It’d be cute if Mithos couldn’t snap every bone in his small body with just the flick of his wrist, but he can’t afford to look any more suspicious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry but "Chronic Angelus Crystallus Inofficium" is a terrible name and I refuse to use it seriously. It sounds like a teenager with no knowledge of Latin tried to come up with a cool disease name, which might actually be exactly what they were going for, but even Angel Toxicosis sounds like a more legit condition. "(Chronic) Angelic Omnidysplasia Crystallificans Progressiva" is what I would have gone with, after five minutes of Googling, if I _had_ to give it a Latin-sounding name. "Inofficium" doesn't mean anything... Bah, I'm getting too caught up in this.


	5. Recover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos helps Genis cure Raine.

Raine collapses when they enter Altessa’s hut. Mithos and Genis quickly put her up in a bed, Genis fussing and worrying over his dear sister’s shallow breathing. Raine, ever the pragmatist, rattles off a list of her symptoms: dizziness, headache, sweating, dry mouth, weak limbs, can’t breathe, can’t think, blurry vision. And yet she also tells the rest not to worry, as if there’s any chance of that. Genis is just like Mithos, and he will take care of his sister, just as she took care of him. Mithos also knows the likely cause of her distress. The Ozette Cold had been going around shortly before he razed its namesake, and half-elves were susceptible to it. It seems like nobody else is aware, however, which gives Mithos a wonderful idea.

Both the lecherous failure Chosen and the clumsy ninja have already taken the other adults to seek out a doctor, leaving Genis, the idiot, and himself to watch over Raine. While Lloyd complains loudly to the dwarf about being left behind, Mithos takes Genis outside and tells him of Raine’s disease and its cure. They tell the disgusting vessel doll that they’re going, and leave informing the others in its hands.

Genis’ magic is already strong, and Tabatha trusts that he can protect Mithos. Of course, Mithos doesn’t need protecting, from anyone or anything, but they don’t know that yet. The thought elicits a strange sense of satisfaction in him, though whether it’s because they’re so pathetic they’ll trust anyone who makes puppy eyes and tells a sad story, or because he’s such a good actor no scrutiny can break through his mask, he doesn’t know. Nevertheless, he accompanies the boy, and allows him to hold his hand as they climb - for safety, Genis insists. He’s so pure, so blatantly transparent, it makes Mithos want to burst into laughter right then and there, and yet at the same time makes his throat itch with the anticipation of bile that never comes.

The boy regales him with stories of his earlier childhood, memories he made with his sister. Mithos smiles through his jealous fury and pretends he’s happy for him. Eventually he moves on to tales of his friends; how Lloyd kept getting in trouble for sleeping in class, and how his dog is the weirdest thing ever - of course it is; no one would look at a protozoan and think it’s actually a dog - but how, whenever someone needed help, he’d always be the first to rush in, no matter what; how Colette won’t stop apologizing for the silliest things, and how when she first got her wings they’d played until it made her sick - of course, it wasn’t the exertion, but a normal part of the transformation: Mithos himself had gone through it - and how strong she was when it came to burdens no person should ever bear. Mithos fights a chuckle back, because Genis has no idea of burdens, of responsibility, or of pain. Part of him wishes the boy would never have to. Another part thinks that, if anyone would understand, it would be him.

The flower blooms at the top. It’s understated, a muted yellow with spiky leaves and round, coiled petals, but its nectar should soothe the worst of Raine’s affliction. Mithos turns it between his fingers, looking at the small thing that heals so much.

“Hey, Genis? If Lloyd and I ever got into a fight… whose side do you think you’d be on?” he asks, testing the water. He makes his voice a little softer than it usually is, because Genis is a sucker for that vulnerable crap.

“Yours, of course,” Genis says without hesitation. “Because you wouldn’t get into an argument about something dumb.”

A pebble falls in the gaping pit that is Mithos’ heart, and he smiles. He doesn’t believe Genis, because he doesn’t know, he doesn’t have all the information, and everybody leaves him in the end, but the answer sates him, for now.

“Would you mind closing your eyes for a little bit?” Mithos asks. “There’s something I’d like to do.”

Genis nods and his eyes are closed before his head’s stopped moving. “Of course. I trust you.”

Mithos leans in and brushes his lips to Genis’, as light as he can. They’re soft, of course, because Genis is a child who’s been well taken care of, through his sister’s best efforts, and his anxieties haven’t caused him to tear them to shreds.

As soon as their lips touch, Mithos pulls away, and Genis’ eyes fly open. A bright flush races to his cheeks and he hops backwards, his mouth open and quivering as his wild eyes home in on Mithos.

“W-what’d you - Wha - Hah?” he stumbles over his words. It was clearly the first time he’d been shown that kind of affection, and pride over that conquest causes the corners of Mithos’ mouth to flip up.

“I trust you, too,” he lies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you mean, where's Lloyd? Genis can take care of himself... and Mithos would have heard him a mile away.
> 
> I'm saying that Colette's Angel Toxicosis is a standard part of the angel transformation. I think it's a conversion of the body's mana, so it makes sense that it makes one feel out of sorts for a while. Colette just goes through a more extreme version of it, and it progresses further, since her body rejects the transformation. Kratos wasn't perturbed when it happened, after all.


	6. Item Thief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos receives a gift.

The rest of the group is practically already on their rheairds, ready to make their next stupid mistake - Raine is especially eager now that her illness has passed - but Genis lingers near the door. He hesitates for a second, with pursed lips and darting eyes, a blush faintly on his cheeks, and then he takes Mithos’ hands.

“Mithos, here…” he stammers, and he reaches into a pouch to drop a small ocarina into Mithos’ still-raised hands.

“What’s this?” Mithos asks. The texture feels familiar, and yet wrong at the same time.

“It’s a flute. Made from a linkite nut.” That explains it. That’s how they took Aska from him, because of one throwaway line about an extinct tree. Of course these impossible people would actually be able to bring the dead back to life. And curse that capricious chicken, all too ready to throw its lot in with anyone who can carry a pleasant tune.

_ Hold it back, Mithos, _ he tells himself. There’ll be time for anger later. He’ll punish all these traitors, when the time comes. Right now, it’s time for soft, smoothed features and a perfect poker face.

“W-We’d like you to have it.” Genis can’t even be honest with him and say that it’s he who wants that. “It may not be the same as your sister's flute…”

Mithos takes Genis’ hand in his own, and gives what he hopes is a bright, watery smile. “No, Genis, thank you. Don’t worry about it.” He refuses to let go of Genis’ twitching hand as he puts the ocarina somewhere safe. “Your feelings are enough. I'm so happy.” He looks straight into Genis’ eyes as he delivers the corniest lines he has in centuries, and Genis can’t keep his gaze. Mithos doesn’t think it’ll be long before the boy is his and his alone.

“I wish you could come along with us,” Genis mutters, and the all-consuming void inside of Mithos agrees.

Mithos runs his thumb over Genis’ small hand and smiles ruefully. If only he could without drawing suspicion. “If there's anything I can do for you, I will. Come talk to me anytime,” he says softly.

Genis looks away with wide eyes, and Mithos can hear his rapid heartbeat clearly even at this distance. The boy pulls his hand back and runs to his rheaird, clearly unable to cope. Mithos smiles to himself, and he doesn’t even have to pretend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's not pretend Mithos isn't a terrible person. He is.


	7. Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos tries to explain he's only doing what he does to help people.

“Lord Yggdrasill, the prisoners have escaped,” an angel reports. Mithos looks up dully from his musing. Typical. “We’ve sent forces to apprehend them. They’ve taken the escape hatch.”

Mithos gives a wave of his hand. “Don’t bother. Your forces will only get into the automatons’ way.”

He stretches and teleports to the screens connected to the sanctum cameras. When they emerge, he’ll be ready. He sighs. _If you want something done right_ , he supposes.

Even though he’s turned away, the lazy wingbeats still echo through the room. Mithos’ lip curls in a snarl, and without looking, he raises an arm and looses a volley of light balls. There’s something pleasant about the smell of scorched flesh.

“Leave.”

It’s only then that he’s finally left with just the company of his own mind. He twists a strand of his long, golden hair between his fingers. It’s truly pathetic that these idiots need everything spelled out exactly. His eyes gaze out of focus at the screens. He won’t have to really pay attention until his periphery detects any movement, after all, so he spends his time planning. Maybe he ought to destroy the escape route, just in case this nonsense happens again? Maybe, but not right now. The girl Chosen should be kept safe, at least until she’s healed and can fulfill her purpose. And Genis would think he did it out of malice, which doesn’t tend to endear people.

“Mithos - they took the fragment, I’m sorry -” Kratos’ voice, hurried but monotone. It’s hard to tell if he’s disappointed or not; the only thing discernible in his voice is a fear of displeasing Mithos.

Mithos doesn’t look up. He’s disappointed, but not in Kratos.

“They have the other materials.” It wouldn’t make sense for them to take it otherwise.

“...Yes.”

“Then there is no problem. They will create the crest for us. The end result is the same.”

“Yes…” Kratos pauses. “By your leave.”

Mithos gives him a curt nod and Kratos’ mana signature disappears. At this point, it’s better to just assume that Genis’ friends will make a big mess of all his plans and to improvise whenever they inevitably do.

He wonders what Genis thinks of the place he must currently be running around in. The air is still and stagnant, and gathering mana for spells must come at a greater cost than above or below. Does he realize it’s much like the world when the war claimed the life of the Tree? Raine probably does. At least they have the automatons and their mana batteries to replenish themselves. If Mithos hadn’t stepped in, the whole world would have had nothing. He might explain it, explain that he did everything to save everyone, that he’s still doing everything to save everyone. Genis should at least respect that.

Movement on the screen, and yes, it’s that all-too-familiar idiot in the red outfit, followed by his friends. They look a little worse for wear, but altogether they’ve managed to survive the deadly automatons and stifling air relatively well. They must be getting more powerful. Mithos grits his teeth.

They stop to take a look at the Eternal Sword. They’re talking, and then Lloyd reaches out for it. Idiot. Mithos wouldn’t leave that there if it could simply be taken. Naturally, Lloyd is rebuffed with a blast of energy, and even without being there Mithos can hear Origin’s booming voice.

Mithos stretches to his full adult height and descends.

“A waste of effort,” he tells them with dry mirth. “The Eternal Sword cannot even be touched by those who lack the right.” For once Lloyd and the rest of his miserable kind are barred from something by pure virtue of their birth.

“He must be talking about the pact with Origin! That's the sword Yggdrasill tricked Origin into giving him!” The ninja sure makes a lot of assumptions for someone so dense. Summon Spirits don’t get tricked.

Mithos laughs, unrestrained. These idiots are so pathetic. He tells them so. Their pithy middle road ideals mean they won’t let Kratos release the seal. Maybe, since Lloyd still doesn’t know they’re related, but if he did, there’s no way he would let Kratos die. And even if they do manage to take Origin from him as well, it’s simply impossible. All in all… “Your journey is futile.”

Lloyd bristles. He truly has none of Kratos’ composure or intelligence. “Futile?... You're the one who's making futile attempts to bring back the dead!” The boy thinks he can strike him where it hurts. He’s too naive. Mithos gave up his heart millennia ago. “Besides, what does splitting the world in two even have to do with that?!”

Mithos rolls his eyes. “The world.” He says it slowly, so even Lloyd can understand. “The worlds still exist only because they were separated into two.”

Lloyd splutters an argument about there not being enough mana. It’s pathetic. As if there could ever be enough mana for everyone. Mithos ignores him and lets someone smarter do the thinking.

“There has always been a shortage of mana, even in my time. Now, why would that be? Well? What do you think, my fellow kinsman?” He looks at Genis through half-lidded eyes.

Genis looks up, shocked. It seems he didn’t think Mithos would call on him, which is a tentatively good sign. Now that he’s been asked a question, though, the gears in his mind turn with their usual impressive speed.

“Um… Because the development of magitechnology resulted in a large consumption of mana?” After all, spells alone don’t require the sheer amounts.

Mithos nods. And of course, countries like Sylvarant and Tethe’alla made it a competition to see who could have the best, the shiniest, the most gluttonous machines. Every improvement one country made had to immediately be one-upped by another, and that envy and greed paved the way for hatred and malice.

“Yes… and that magitechnology led to a great war. War consumes an abhorrent amount of mana.”

Infantry automatons, long-distance artillery, all types’ various enhancement like remote control, heat-seeking, area-of-effect… an abundance of the most sophisticated technology, guzzling mana from the Tree like a hungry babe, all in use at once. Nothing can produce enough mana fast enough to keep up with that.

“Don't change the subject. There's a mana shortage because you won't let the Great Seed germinate.” Lloyd’s simple one-track mind is starting to piss Mithos off. He never thinks his ideas through all the way.

“I am not changing the subject,” Mithos says tersely. “Even if the Giant Tree were to be revived, another war would make it wither and die. Wars are caused by two opposing forces. That is why I split the world in two: To isolate the powers that caused that foolish Kharlan War into the worlds of Sylvarant and Tethe'alla.” It’s obvious. Nothing good comes from giving people the opportunity to destroy themselves.

Raine nods. She understands. “By alternating between prosperity and dearth, the development of magitechnology is subdued.” Exactly.

“Although, at the moment, Tethe'alla has prospered for a little too long.” Its magitechnology has started to become hungry, and there’s only so much one can compensate for with expheres.

Lloyd shakes his head. His entire body is tense, and he’s vibrating. Mithos makes a show of relaxing his body to prove just how much more control he has, how much better he is.

“You're lying. You're sacrificing the Great Seed just to save Martel,” he growls through his teeth.

“The same way you abandoned the declining world of Sylvarant in order to save Colette?” Mithos asks him. He sneers. “I’m nothing like that. You remember what happened when you severed the mana links, don’t you?”

Lloyd’s nostrils flare and he opens his mouth to say something, but no words come out.

“Don’t be naive. What I’m doing is the only way to save the worlds and my sister.”

He looks down on the boy, whose shoulders are hunched now with the realization he has no argument against this.

“No, it’s not!” Genis’ hesitant voice calls out.

“What?” Mithos is caught by surprise enough that some actual emotion slips from behind his composed facade.

“Lloyd is looking for a way to save both Colette and the world! You're a coward who gave up!”

A coward? Genis might be right about that, but so what? Some battles can’t be won, and making a tactical retreat sometimes is the best option.

“I am trying to create a world without discrimination. That is the way to save the world.”

Genis doesn’t look convinced.

“People fear and hate what is not normal. They are scared of those that are different. Then the solution is for everyone to become the same. By using the exspheres to eliminate the different bloods that flow through elves and humans, everyone on this earth will become the same lifeless beings. Discrimination will vanish. That is the grand age I strive for.”

His argument is solid. Of course it is: he’s had centuries to come up with it. So it’s no surprise that Genis considers it seriously, even though Lloyd seems not to have gotten that memo.

“Desians and Cruxis both exist for this purpose. The conflicts between the races born from discrimination will disappear, Genis,” Mithos says, a little softer this time.

Genis puts two fingers to his lips in thought, and it’s all Mithos can do to stop himself from taking the boy’s hands in his. He’s Yggdrasill now - it’d be all wrong.

“...People will stop treating us differently? Really?” Genis mumbles, looking at the ground.

Lloyd takes hold of Genis’ shoulder. “Genis! Don't fall for it! Think about how the exspheres are made! They're made at the cost of people's lives, like Marble. Don't you see what's wrong with that?!”

Genis blanches at the mention of this Marble’s name, and his eyes cloud over with sadness and doubt. Mithos sighs. The boy isn’t ready. Not yet.

“...With revolution comes sacrifice. If you cannot understand that…”

He doesn’t get the chance to finish his sentence, because the girl Chosen rushes forward, likely in an attempt to try to convince him not to lose his temper, and to let Lloyd make a mess of things, or whatever it is. Before she can reach him, though, her legs lock up and she trips over them, landing on the crystal floor with a cloth-muffled clack. The crystallization has spread that far already? She doesn’t have much time.

Something sizzles in his ear, and when he looks at its source, he sees a thick snake made of fire and earth coiled around his leg, nipping at anything it can reach, the tingle of electricity coursing through him every time it bites. He’s bleeding, even if he can’t feel the pain. It’s a high-level application of magic, and indeed, Genis has that toy of his clutched to his chest, the air directly around him curiously dry of mana. Mithos would be proud, if the magic hadn’t been used on _him_.

With a burst of pure mana, he frees himself from the serpent, because even at his current level, Genis is no match for him, and he’s about to open his mouth when the sickeningly shrill whining of his underling rings out from behind.

“Lord Yggdrasill!” Pronyma must have been watching the confrontation on the screens, and thought he needed help. She always meddles when she shouldn’t. “You little vermin! You may be one of us, but you shall pay for your treachery!” she screeches. A low, choked sound comes from her throat, and Mithos feels mana gather around her.

He doesn’t think - Genis still has use, so he catches her magic with his own body. Shadow’s influence always was particularly hard on him, and the wounds he sustained from Genis’ new magic widen from the darkness’ decay, and the tendrils of magic that probe his body, looking for weakness, find ample footholds within his memories. It takes a considerable effort not to cry out.

“Pronyma,” he growls low. “Why are you here?” _You_ shouldn’t _be here_ , is what he means.

“...Sir. Ah... new activity in regards to that certain matter has...”

Kratos is on the move again. Mithos knew he couldn’t trust him. Humans are all the same. He straightens himself, heedless of the blood pouring out of the wounds on his side.

“...Understood.” He floats up and looks down, giving Lloyd a patronizing look. “Not always is there a way to save everyone. Remember that. Lloyd, the path you seek is nothing but an illusion.”

It’s not until after he’s finished listening to Pronyma’s report that he realizes the ocarina Genis gave him is missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to think the dark and light elements also influence moods. People who have an affinity for light magic tend to think they're righteous but might be prone to depression, while those with an affinity for dark are committed to their actions regardless of whether they're good or bad, or something. Especially the dark element, that it works to hurt someone by making someone's body shut itself down through oppressive negativity. Mithos certainly has plenty of that, after all!


	8. Absolute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos reveals himself.

Thanks to some quick emergency healing and his impeccable acting skills, neither Altessa nor the doll suspect he’s been hurt when he returns to them, pretending he just went on a walk in the area. It’s not long after that Genis’ group returns, cradling the girl Chosen’s rigid body.

Mithos pretends to be surprised and concerned.

Everyone’s spirits are low, since the girl was one of their most major sources for unwarranted cheer. Genis doesn’t seem any more out of sorts than the rest of them, which is good. Maybe the flute was destroyed, or maybe he dropped it at a different time, or he didn’t find it. Maybe for once in the entirety of Mithos’ long, miserable life, he can finally catch a break. He doesn’t hold his breath.

While Raine guides Altessa through the process of making a proper key crest, the boy Chosen prepares the evening meal. Because he’s particularly crass in asking the female members of the group to help, he’s told he’s on his own, and since Mithos is a fair bit more suspicious than Genis’ friends, he thinks he sees the shadow of something sinister behind the grin Zelos plasters on his face as he shrugs.

The flames of doubt are fanned further when the Chosen encourages the group to eat as much as possible. Lloyd, in stark contrast with the usual, seems not to be hungry, and the incorrigible flirt practically throws himself at him to put food in his mouth. Even for Zelos, even if it is Lloyd, it seems excessive when he holds a carrot up to the idiot’s mouth and purrs at him to “Say, ‘ahh’~”

Then again, maybe Lloyd is the one exception to Zelos’ purposeful and over-the-top disinterest in other men. Maybe he truly is that elated to have their companion cured. Maybe for once, Mithos’ cynical nature is unwarranted.

Of course it isn’t.

The mana in his body quickly neutralizes the toxins in the food, fast enough that he can’t even tell what its reaction should be. He’ll have to watch the others and copy them.

Lloyd isn’t the only one hesitant to eat. Genis has lost his appetite as well. While it’s normal for the youngest of a group to be the most affected, Mithos can’t help being apprehensive.

“Mithos… we’re friends, right?” Genis asks, joining Mithos in the corner where he’s pretending to be a wallflower.

Of course hoping is pointless. Nothing good ever happens to him. “What?” Still, Mithos pretends to be caught out by the question. “Of course. What are you talking about?”

“We're really friends, right?” Genis confirms again. “You and me.”

Of course they’re not. “Yeah…”

Genis takes Mithos’ hands in his, and looks deeply, intensely into his eyes. “I believe you, ok?”

Mithos opens his mouth, but he can’t think of a reply. It’s all over, and Genis still has the guts to say things like that? What’s he playing at? He shuts his mouth and nods.

Yawns abound around the dinner table. Clearly the substance in the food was some sort of sleeping drug, and Mithos plays along. The ninja is, predictably, the first to head to bed. She ate the most, after the big man, and has less body mass to soak up the toxins with. He leaves not long after, though. Mithos takes Genis to a bed when the boy slumps against his shoulder, forcing his eyes to stay open in an attempt to ward off the inevitable. He takes up position against the side of the bed, pretending he fell asleep there as the others filter out of the common room.

It’s at least an hour later when it happens. Muted sounds of crackling electricity from the other boys’ room. Electricity isn’t Zelos’ style, and they apparently aren’t after the Chosen, which leaves…

Mithos levitates himself so his feet won’t make sound, and watches from the window as Yuan drags Lloyd out, where two Renegades fail to make themselves useful. Yuan should know his pawns stand no chance against Kratos, so clearly they must have an understanding.

“Kratos. If you value your son's life at all, do as we say,” Yuan says dispassionately. He’s not even looking at the human. Mithos knew Kratos had gone soft, but seeing just how much makes him feel disgusted he even kept him around.

So Yuan thinks _he_ should be the one to wield the Eternal Sword now? Even though his last brilliant plan nearly destroyed the delicate balance Mithos worked so hard to protect? Preposterous. Yuan rushes into his plans before considering all the angles, and he doesn’t think far enough ahead, nor big enough. At least Kratos isn’t convinced, either. He hasn’t gone soft enough that the threat of one human life will make him surrender. That’s good.

Yuan says something insensitive about the woman that stole Kratos away from Mithos’ side, and despite not having known a thing about her, the boy gets himself all worked up and breaks free from the renegades holding him back to throw an ineffective punch. Kratos blocks the retaliation, and Mithos takes back his previous thoughts. It’s not good. Kratos goes down.

Yuan grabs the boy’s arm and puts one of his feet on Kratos’ chest. Apparently the revelation caused Lloyd to lose whatever fight he had in him, and it’s a little disappointing. Mithos expected him to be able to bounce back fairly fast, with how big he talks all the time. It shouldn’t be a surprise, though: talk is cheap, and it’s always different when it’s you.

Someone else wakes up in the house, in the girls’ room. There’s the soft rustling of fabric, and hesitant steps, before the door opens.

“Lloyd?”

It’s the Chosen. Isn’t that good news? She’s all cured. The timing could have been a little better, but it doesn’t matter. Mithos will get his hands on her soon enough.

Lloyd makes a pained noise as he looks at her, his hand still firmly in Yuan’s grasp. “Kratos can't be... The man who betrayed us and made you suffer, he couldn't possibly be… my dad…”

The chosen runs over to the scene and tries to pry him away from Yuan. “Lloyd, don't lose sight of who you are! No matter who your parents are, no matter your background, you're still you!”

Yuan pulls him back, away from the girl, but her words reach him, and he stiffens.

“You're the one who told me that no matter what I look like, even if I become an angel, I'm still me…” she says firmly as she pushes herself in between Yuan and Lloyd. “So don’t you beat yourself up over this either! Whatever Yuan wants to do to you, don’t let him!”

With this, Lloyd finally regains the motivation to wrest himself free from Yuan’s grasp, and pushes him away. He probably only manages to with the element of surprise, since Yuan must still be much stronger.

The Renegades look at their leader, confused about what to do, but Yuan merely looks frustrated. Mithos shakes his head. Disappointing. Spending so many years undercover, trying to undermine him, and he can’t even adapt to this small misfortune on the fly? He’s hopeless.

“Thanks,” Lloyd mumbles in Kratos’ direction, taking small, guarded steps towards him, putting himself between the two Seraphim. “For saving me.”

The Chosen kneels down at Kratos’ side, eyes on Yuan. Mithos can’t see the look in her eyes, but he suspects it’s something along the line of focused determination. It always is with these people.

“...I’m not gonna call you my dad,” Lloyd says, unable or unwilling to look at the man. “I hate what you… what Cruxis does. Too many people have died. People from Sylvarant, people from Tethe'alla… Desians and Renegades and members of Cruxis... They're all victims. I refuse to accept the idea that it's okay to sacrifice people for a cause. It's not okay to lose your life. No life should be born for the sole purpose of dying. I won't sacrifice the world to save Colette. I'm not giving up until I find a way for everyone to live.”

Mithos has had enough. He slams open the door and walks out, to both Yuan and Kratos’ shock-bleached expressions.

“Wow,” he says, slowly clapping his hands. “That was an amazingly corny speech. Congratulations.”

He grabs one of the Renegades at the door by the arm and throws him into the other one, knocking them both out cold.

“Mithos?” the surprise and denial are thick in Lloyd’s voice.

Mithos gives him a cold smile, then fires an arrow of light at Yuan, who can’t avoid it. “Did you really think I didn’t notice what was going on?” Yuan doubles over, clutching his side where the arrow burned through his clothes and his skin. “How pathetic.” Mithos sides his eyes over to where the Chosen still kneels hunched over Kratos. “I already had Pronyma keep tabs on Kratos, since it seemed he was leaking information to Lloyd’s group.”

“How did you find out…?” Yuan says after a sharp intake of breath. Blood seeps through the gaps between his fingers. If only he knew.

“You think you’re the only one who can play pretend?” Mithos chuckles. “That was a pretty amusing scheme you had going… Hard to believe those filthy Renegades that were always getting in my way… were actually led by you.” He walks over to Yuan, pushes him onto the ground and puts his foot down on the wound. “If it weren't for my sister's wishes to spare your life, I'd kill you right now.”

Fortunately there’s plenty of anger he can let out without actually killing the Seraphim, and to prove it, he stomps down hard on Yuan’s wound, twisting his heel into his flesh. The grunts of pain sound like music to his ears, and he laughs. He stomps down again, and again, and he doesn’t stop laughing, it’s too cathartic.

He doesn’t stop laughing even when Lloyd says something he doesn’t hear, but then the door opens again, and it’s the dwarf, that disgusting doll, and Genis. The dwarf looks as surprised as Lloyd and the Chosen did, but there’s a look of resignation on the boy’s face.

“So it’s true…” Genis mumbles. He’s so sad, but the jig is up, and Mithos can’t stop now.

Mithos puts an expression of exaggerated innocent naivety on his face and puts a finger to his lips. “What? That you shouldn't have trusted me? Good guess, Genis!” he says louder than he intends to.

Genis winces. His eyes cloud over and his mouth purses into a pout.

He twists the knife. “Because I didn't trust you either!”

Mithos launches a volley of light and doesn’t care where it lands. One hits the roof of Altessa’s house, one hits Altessa himself in the chest, the Chosen narrowly manages to avoid one, and several others only manage to leave scorch marks on the ground. They don’t need to do any more. It’s a signal.

“`MITHOS… SAVED ME…`”

Mithos allows himself to let loose a guttural scream. He hates the doll so much. Every second he spent in the same room every fiber of his body itched and burned with loss, with anger, with sadness. Whenever it moved in his periphery his heart jumped in his chest because it still didn’t realize that the machine that moved with the shadow of his sister isn’t her, when it speaks it has her voice, twisted and corrupted into a mockery of itself, and his insides twist and turn because it’s not her and it could never be her, and he’s finally, finally had enough.

“Shut **up**!” he roars, and he lets loose another volley, all aimed straight for the doll.

One orb of light hits it, sizzles and chars its clothes and skin, and then another, and another but they don’t _hurt_ it, they don’t _destroy_ it, and they don’t even make it _shut up_.

“`MITHOS… SAVED - MITHOS… MI - SA-SA-SA-AVED ME…`” it chatters, on repeat.

Mithos screams his throat raw just so he doesn’t have to hear it. It doesn’t work.

“How could you do that?” It’s Raine.

The whole group has appeared. Apparently whatever useless drug Yuan supplied the boy Chosen with, has a diminished effect on exphere-users. He can’t even do this right.

“Didn’t you risk your life to save her?”

“Mithos… Why? Why are you doing this?” Genis’ voice is so small. “How could you hurt Tabatha and Altessa? You got along so well with them!”

“ _Tabatha_ ,” Mithos spits, its very name enough to heat his fury to a fever pitch. “That doll looks so disturbingly like my sister... I never could stand it! It's a failed vessel who couldn't accept my sister's soul! Just looking at it makes me sick!”

He’s gotten too caught up in his hatred. He knows it, but he can’t stop himself. He carries four _thousand_ years of hurt in himself, and the dam has burst.

“How _dare_ you betray my best friend!”

Lloyd has gotten over his shock, and has launched himself at Mithos, grabbing him by the collar and bowling him over.

“It’s all _his_ fault for being so trusting,” Mithos sneers with a grin, and the next moment Lloyd’s fist collides with his face.

The boy straddles him, right where Genis’ snake bit his torso, and it hurts when he moves, enough to keep him put long enough for Lloyd to punch him again. To Mithos’ surprise, it’s Genis who pushes Lloyd off him.

“Lloyd, stop!” he shouts, using his fragile body to block Mithos’ immortal one from Lloyd’s rage. “Please… You’re both my friends!”

Both Mithos and Lloyd are caught by surprise, but only Lloyd lets it stop his movement. Mithos scrambles to his feet, ignoring the pain surging through his body. Drops of blood fall on the floor as he rises, and when he rubs the back of his wrist under his nose, it comes back red.

He opens his mouth to say something, taunt Genis for ever being fooled, mock Lloyd for being too dense to realize, yell or scream or shout, or anything, but Pronyma finally arrives.

“Lord Yggdrasill, your wounds are not yet healed,” she says, as if she has the right to rebuke him. “Please, leave this to the angels.”

Mithos spits on the ground. Fine, this charade has gone on long enough already. He discards the form Genis and his friends thought they could trust, returning to his adult body. “...Alright.”

He ascends, high enough that the Chosen alone can touch him, and looks down for one final taunt.

“‘No life is born for the sole purpose of dying’?” He scoffs. “What do you think those expheres are that you’re using?”

And he disappears, letting Pronyma fuss over him, make sure he gets his rest and heals properly, before the next time he’ll inevitably face someone who doesn’t get it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's no way Lloyd would have his sword here.
> 
> This scene is one of my favorite from the game. So much drama, so many twists all at once, and Mithos's best line.


	9. Holy Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos reunites with his sister.

_“I side with the strongest. It was a simple matter of weighing the Renegades, Cruxis, and all of you.”_   The projector screen doesn’t have sound, but that’s what Zelos says.

Mithos taps his lips as he watches Zelos’ betrayal unfold. He’s smiling. Maybe now these fools will think twice before trusting someone shifty. Ah, no, Lloyd just said something, and Zelos gives him a disbelieving look. At this point, he really should have learned that you can’t trust anything but inevitable betrayal. Mithos rolls his eyes.

Then again, was the boy Chosen really that much better? He worked under the assumption that Mithos would set him free, after all. No, he was different. That first time they met face-to-face he saw that specter of darkness behind his eyes, that mirthless smile. To him, freedom and death were likely one and the same.

Pronyma takes both Chosen through the teleporter, and seconds later, they’re in the room with him. Pronyma bows deep as a pair of angels take Colette to the Seed. Zelos runs his fingers through his hair. He looks as bored as ever.

“Lord Yggdrasill.”

“Well, there she is. That’s my side of the deal done.”

Mithos hums and strides over to the two of them, a smile on his face. He takes Zelos’ face between his fingers to examine his expression, wondering how many layers of masks he’d have to strip off before he gets to any genuine feelings.

“Well done, Zelos. ...Those fools are practically begging to be betrayed, aren’t they?”

Zelos’ first mask is mild amusement, his usual carefree facade. Underneath is some mild dissatisfaction, because even now he still lacks any control over himself. There’s some doubt in there; it’s possible he still hasn’t made up his mind about who to side with. And of course, so much emptiness. Mithos wonders where he hides his despair.

“Yup, sure are,” Zelos says with a shrug. He taps Mithos’ hand. “You know I love ya, Lord Y, but I’m not into guys.”

Mithos returns Zelos’ joyless smile and releases his face. He doesn’t even have to look to know Pronyma must be biting her tongue to stop herself from chewing Zelos out - she’s made her displeasure with his disrespect more than known. If it weren’t for her efficiency and power, he would have chosen a different Grand Cardinal already, but thanks to Lloyd and Yuan’s combined efforts, his forces are spread thin as it is, so he just has to put up with her emotional nature. For now.

“You have everything you need, right?” Zelos asks impatiently, observing the nails of one hand, the other on his hip. “I did my part.”

“You’d do well to remember who you’re speaking to,” Mithos warns him. But for now he doesn’t have anything for him to do. “Pronyma, watch the gauntlet. Zelos, you are excused.”

The three of them go their separate ways. Zelos makes a quip about how Mithos shouldn’t forget to honor his end of the deal, which Mithos ignores, as usual. He’s on his way to the inner sanctum where the Seed is held, and within it, Martel. He has more important things to worry about than an impatient ex-Chosen.

The angels have already placed the girl in the transfer pod, and Mithos gives the glass over her sleeping face a delicate touch. She doesn’t visually resemble his sister at all, but that’s fine - a necessary sacrifice - as long as the mana is the same. He really hopes it’ll work this time. He does every time, but this attempt has been especially hard-fought.

He watches the angels perform the routine tasks of ensuring all tubes and cables are in place, checking the mana levels and adjusting them, and nods at their success. His eyes drift up at the writhing, undulating mass of mana, so thick its ever-shifting ribbons resemble the petals of a flower, at the single exphere barely visible in its core, and he smiles. _Not much longer now, sister._

He takes his place at the console, watches the graphs on the screen, the shifting lines and numbers in a script nearly forgotten by time. He’s been at this for so long. Fortunately, time is meaningless. The only thing that matters is results. He stares at the charge percentage until it creeps into the nineties.

Pronyma has returned, overseeing the angels’ work in Mithos’ place. He nods to acknowledge her, but otherwise ignores her. She knows the score; they’ve been through this enough times by now that the process has become almost fully automated.

Mithos puts his hand on the pod again, and looks up at his sister. He can almost see her, ghostly, translucent and sleeping, as if this whole mess is nothing but a bad dream. If only it was, so she could wake him up and stroke his hair again, singing to him as if all the pain was a world away.

“Ninety-eight percent,” an angel drones.

Mithos sighs. “It is finally time, dearest sister. This body has the closest match to your mana signature. I’ve failed many times in the past, but this time I swear I’ll make it work.” When she wakes up, all this misery will have been worth it.

The console beeps, and he nods at one of the angels to start the transfer. The machine whirrs into action, humming as it processes Martel’s mana. Mithos hates how long it takes. There’s nothing to do but wait as the ghost of his sister slowly fades from its resting place, molecule by molecule, and merges with the body of the Chosen.

“Let her go!”

Mithos turns his head to see the interruption. It’s the familiar headstrong idiot, muscles bulging under his clothes, visible through cuts and tears in his sleeves as he uselessly tries to pry open the automatic door faster than it has a mind to.

“Lloyd? The lock to this room can only be opened by a member of the Cruxis high order…” he mumbles to himself. So that part of the angel transformation is hereditary. It would be interesting, and worthy of further examination, if it weren’t for the fact that Lloyd chose to drop in at the only time that matters.

Except it doesn’t, because he’s too late.

Mithos turns back to the pod with his sister’s new body. There’s nothing anyone can do to stop the fusion now. Lloyd doesn’t seem to understand this obvious fact, and he rushes past the door, lunges at Mithos, and is unceremoniously blocked by Pronyma’s cape. The edge of his sword hits one of the levitating shield blades, and repels off it with a high-pitched scratch. Moments later, there’s the satisfying meaty thud of skin colliding with skin, a low grunt and the taps of feet recovering balance. Mithos smiles. Pronyma certainly has gotten herself worked up, if the mage is using her fists. She returns to her spells soon enough, though, if the flow of mana in the room is anything to go by.

Mithos keeps his eyes on the pod. He has no interest in the altercation going on behind him; he needs to be paying attention when his sister wakes up. Every second she’s stuck in that infernal rock feels like a thousand years, and Mithos sympathizes with Lloyd’s attempt to force the door open faster, but it’s pointless. Some things cannot be rushed, and _he_ has the composure to be patient.

He knows his perception of the passage of time is warped, but he can also hear the unearthly roars, sizzles and sloshes of magic, the clangs of metal hitting metal, the ironically soft sounds of cloth and skin being torn from itself, blood splattering on the ground and the deafening silences that accompany the battle, and he knows Pronyma is taking entirely too long to disable one single assailant. He debates helping her out, but one look at the rapidly vanishing ghost of his sister and he knows there’s no time. He needs to be there when she wakes up, and if Pronyma can’t even defend herself from a teenage boy she’s not worthy of being a Desian Grand Cardinal anyway.

There’s a squish, an object being pushed into something soft and wet - the sound of imminent death, all too familiar. She falls to the floor screaming, though it sounds more like a gurgle with the blood bubbling up into her throat, her mana focused on keeping her alive now, instead of afloat. Lloyd is breathing heavily. He lowers his swords, their tips touch the ground with a gentle sound, but he doesn’t otherwise move.

“Lord Yggdrasill,” Pronyma gasps as she crawls towards him, blood dripping from her mouth and wounds, landing softly on the floor. “It hurts… Please, help me…”

Mithos pays her no mind. She’s no longer of any consequence. The last sliver of half-elven mana disappears from the pebble at the Seed’s core, and a small “ding” announces that the transfer is complete. Behind the glass, inside the pod, Martel’s eyelids twitch, and her mouth opens with the first breath she’s taken in four thousand years.

“I’ve succeeded…” Mithos mutters to himself, and he laughs. After so long, finally, his sister -

There’s a tug on his pants. “Lord Yggdrasill - _Mithos_ \- Please -”

He kicks the offender off him.

“You don’t have the right to use that name!” The thought that this pathetic woman thought she could use the name reserved only for those three who’d been closest to him made his stomach roil. He grabs her by the hair and slams her into the ground. “Get out of my sight.”

Lloyd lets out a small gasp, but Mithos’ attention is elsewhere: the transfer pod is opening. Martel stirs with a small noise, and her eyes flutter open. Slowly, she sits up, her hands firmly against the runic slab she lays on. She looks at him with a small frown, her irises twitching in place, like they did whenever she was trying to solve a problem, or trying to remember where she’d left something, as if she doesn’t recognize him.

“Sister…” Mithos says, hoping the word stirs her memory.

“Colette… no…” Lloyd mumbles behind, and his knees hit the floor.

Martel shakes her head and slowly stands up, shakily emerging from the pod. It’s so strange to look down on her like this, but they’ll get used to it. Their hair matches now, and the sunlight gold suits her just as much as the green of new leaves had. She’s not smiling. Why isn’t she smiling? She should be happy. Maybe she still doesn’t recognize him?

“Mithos…” she says, still shaking her head. She does recognize him. “What have you done?”

“Martel…?” Mithos stares at her as his brain short-circuits. _What have I done?_ What could she be talking about? He’s done everything right. His eyes flit around the room unseeing as he runs through a list of things she could have issues with.

“...You mean my body? I hastened my growth to have an appearance befitting the leader of Cruxis. You know how people wouldn’t take me seriously before…” He thought she’d be proud. He spent considerable time crafting the spell, no one had ever done something like it before, and it was only even possible because of his angel transformation. Maybe she just wanted her little brother back? He understood that. “I see, you don’t like this form… Wait just a moment. I'll switch back.” He gave her a smile and reshaped the mana of his body to its default. He spread his hands out in front of him, proudly presenting the version of himself that she would be familiar with.

Martel gave him a smile, but it was watery and strained. It was all wrong. She took his hands, let them go and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him to her chest in a hug. If Mithos had the capacity for tears, he’d be weeping. She smelled wrong, but she was his sister and she loved him. She was smaller and different but she was alive. He’d never let anyone take her from him again. He only reluctantly allowed her to pull away.

“No, Mithos. Not that.” Her voice is higher than the one that always plays in his head, but the modulated cadence is the same, and he doesn’t mind it if this new voice replaces her old, if it means he can hear her talk about new things. “I’ve been watching, Mithos, and I wish I could have done something…”

She takes his hands again, and she shakes her head again, and Mithos can’t think of what he’s done wrong.

“Have you forgotten everything? We stopped the Ancient War because we dreamt of a world where humans, elves, and those in between could live in harmony.”

Of course he remembers. That’s why he did all of this. That’s what the Age of Half-Elves is all about. She must be able to see that, if she’d just think.

“Yes, _yes_!” Mithos says. He can’t keep his composure anymore. It’s all _wrong_. “Now that you’re back, we can turn everyone into angels, and no one will hate each other anymore!”

She’s still shaking her head, and frowning. Why isn’t she happy?

“I don’t understand what’s wrong… Is it the body? Do you not like the new body I got for you? I can get you another, but it’ll take time -”

“ _Mithos_.”

He looks at her. She doesn’t need to raise her strong, soft voice to stop him dead in his tracks. She catches his eyes with her own, and he doesn’t think he recognizes them. Not because they’re so big and so blue, but because they’re filled with such insurmountable disappointment, and his sister couldn’t possibly miss the point like that.

“Mithos, please. Listen to me. What you have done… is wrong. It is not what we strived for.”

Mithos tears himself from her grip. “You can’t… Are you rejecting me…?” He shakes his head. He can’t believe this. His sister wouldn’t do this to him.

“No, I want you to _remember_. Please stop this and become your old self again…”

It’s not his sister. It can’t be his sister. The Chosen must still have control; the fusion must have failed again. It’s not Martel.

“My sister wouldn’t say something like that!” he hisses.

“Just because she says something you don’t like, doesn’t mean she’s not your sister, Mithos!”

Mithos’ head snaps up to the maintenance catwalk. That voice, high-pitched and wavering, but certain of itself. And indeed, he’s there. He’s out of breath and his knees are scuffed, but he’s there, and he’s not dead. His insides feel like they’re trying to burn themselves out of him.

“Genis?”

And it’s not just Genis. The rest of the peanut gallery is with him, except for Zelos. But even that catwalk is only accessible with high-level clearance. Maybe Kratos betrayed him again, blood ties stronger than his wisdom. Maybe Zelos hasn’t given up as much as he thought he had after all. It doesn’t matter. After this, they’re _both_ dead.

“Mithos, please listen to her,” Genis pleads. “Making a world just for angels won’t solve the problem!”

Mithos shakes his head. “It’s the _only_ thing that can solve the problem.”

The Chosen takes his hand. “No, Mithos. Genis is right. We wanted to make a world where humans, elves, and those like us could _all_ live together.”

“No,” he says. “No. _No!_ ” His hands twitch; they feel like they’re burning, and he can’t stop himself from laughing. After all this hard work, Lloyd still manages to get in his way. “You’re not Martel! She’d know it’s the only way. You can’t stop me. You can’t take this from me. _I won’t allow that, you hear me?_ ”

White-hot light bursts from his fingertips and he screams. The mana sears through the metal and stone in the room, the smell of burning fills his nose, but it’s not enough. There’s still more mana prickling against his skin, desperate to be released. Peals of laughter still bubble out of his throat, and his eyes sting with strain. Everyone betrays him in the end. His fists are clenched tight; when he opens them up to look he sees deep ridges his nails have carved in his palm. He shakes his head and focuses, taking time to catch his breath. His sight has gone blurry, that’s how angry he is. He needs to… He extends his arm, pointing his hand at the transfer pod and fires at it.

His fuzzy vision clears, but he can’t see the Chosen in a smoking heap on the floor. She’s on the floor, but she’s fine, too far to the side to be hit. There’s a hole in the pod, molten metal dripping onto the floor, and mana seeps out of the tubes into the open air.

“Tch.”

Mithos isn’t sure who sucked air through his teeth. It could have been him, or it could have been Zelos, who now stands in front of him, on the opposite side of the hole from the other Chosen.

“I thought you wanted me to set you free of your fate as a Chosen!”

Zelos gives him a carefree shrug. “Oh, you know what? I changed my mind,” he says with a smirk.

Mithos shakes his head. The method is irrelevant - the only thing that matters is that Zelos has a death wish.

“Being a Chosen and all that crap won’t matter after we beat the snot out of you anyway.”

He helps the other Chosen to her feet and draws his sword. Their friends have stepped off the catwalk and come up behind Mithos. It’s not so bad. This way he can let off some steam.

With a roar, he leaps into battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Lloyd's going to have any chance of taking on a _Seraphim_ one-on-one, he should be able to handle a Desian Grand Cardinal. And this way, the rest of the group has some energy left to try to stop Mithos from doing something stupid (not that they succeed).


	10. Prism Sword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos bites the dust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to preface this chapter by saying that this chapter will contain a bunch of headcanons that might not work with any other Symphonia lore. I personally like the idea, though, and since I've already decided to throw out Dawn of the New World for this AU anyway...

The air crackles and fizzes when Mithos finally falls. He’d whizzed around the battle field; teleported across the room in a flash; fired arrow after arrow after laser; dropped exploding swords, searing rays and the light of judgment; he collapsed an area of the battlefield in on itself and he punched anything that came close until the skin and even the muscles had flayed clean off his knuckles, and it still wasn’t enough.

If it had been anyone else, maybe it would have been. He decimated an entire village with one blow, after all. But these weren’t ordinary people. Even with expheres, they shouldn’t be this powerful - unless even with a proper key crest, expheres continued to mature. It would, once again, be a fascinating research subject, if it wasn’t used specifically to foil his plans.

Wherever he appeared in the room, one of them would be there, waiting for him and ready to strike. Only a few months ago, their hits barely even registered, but apparently since then, they had suffered enough to start to hurt. Against fewer of them, Mithos would still emerge victorious, but there were eight of them - though since Lloyd still nursed his wounds from his battle with Pronyma, only seven in active combat - and he couldn’t defend himself from them all.

After a lengthy battle that wore on both sides, at last the big one kicked him in the sternum, knocking the wind out of his lungs and sending him crashing into the rock slab of the transfer pod where the ninja sent electric mana coursing through his body wherever she tapped her cards against his body. She must have hit certain pressure points, because it took a few agonizing seconds before he regained control over his limbs. He fired a light arrow to both hurt and propel him away from the summoner, but ended up with the angelus experiment’s axeblade against his back, and the only way to avoid her attack was to step into one of Raine’s magic traps, which he did, because the tickle of her light magic was preferable to a bloody cut on his back, but the trap kept him in place while Genis finished the last words of his incantation, and before he could move out of the way, he was engulfed in a vicious vortex that slammed him into the walls and machinery.

He lies face up on the floor, his body too broken to move, and his hair is draped over his face, blocking half his sight as he glares up at the ceiling lights, snarling with the dregs of energy he had left. A shadow passes over him, and when his eyes refocus, a lazy grin and dull green eyes hover over him, surrounded by a halo of red waves, the ends of which tickle his cheeks.

“No hard feelings,” Zelos says, as he plunges his sword into Mithos’ chest.

 

* * *

 

It’s dark and everything hurts. His body feels like it’s on fire; he wants to scream but no sound passes his throat. He wonders if he’s back where it all started, when they realized they could use the physical alterations induced by those rocks to their own benefit. He’d been the first to change, because he was the youngest, the most emotional. If it’s that, the pain should go soon. He just has to hold out, stay focused, think about his goals.

_Martel is waiting._

 

* * *

 

How dare those insufferable fools get in the way? Didn’t they know that this whole world, that life itself is meaningless if she’s not in it? No, of course they wouldn’t. They’re selfish, and they only think about themselves. Without her, the world is a rotten, empty place. It needs her warmth.

_Martel is the only light in the world._

 

* * *

 

A few sweet notes drift in the air. Not a full song, just a few errant sounds from a simple woodwind instrument that stir an echo of days long past. Sitting in the shade of a tree under the burning sun; a short reprieve from an arduous journey. A small improvisational piece to soothe their frayed nerves.

_Martel…_

 

* * *

 

_This world doesn’t deserve Martel._

_Its people don’t deserve Martel._

_Martel deserves better._

_He’ll give her a new home that knows how to treat her right._

 

* * *

 

“Mithos…” a familiar voice mumbles softly and sighs.

Mithos doesn’t know how much later he wakes up. His vision is hazy, clouded over as if he’s looking through a thick layer of colored glass, and he can see little of the dark room around him. He wants to move his hands to rub his eyes, but his body refuses to cooperate.

A noise breaks the tentative silence, jarring and garbled, and Mithos can’t quite make out what it’s supposed to be, but it causes the room to shake and gives him a sense of vertigo that feels at odds with how long he’s been able to bend gravity to his own will.

It’s draining to keep conscious. He’ll just rest his injuries off for now. At least if those bleeding hearts have taken him captive, he can be sure he’s in the safest place possible.

Idiots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rip in pieces
> 
> I still don't feel at all comfortable writing fight scenes, which is part of why I skipped over a majority of it. The other part is that the fight itself wasn't what was important. It's the feeling of the fight that matters.


	11. Rameesh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos loses his last friend.

When he regains consciousness again, Mithos is struck with a sense of nostalgia that makes him feel like his chest is about to burst. The mossy smell that mingles delicately with woodsmoke and fruit, the dense mana that permeates the air - his body remembers this place, and it feels like he’s burning from the inside with both yearning and fear.

“Yeowch!”

It’s Genis’ voice, but Mithos still can’t see him. He tries to look around the room, but as before, his vision is clouded and he can’t move his head.

“Geez, Mithos, you sure are a handful...” Genis mumbles, and it reminds Mithos of Yuan late at night, when they were still traveling together and he thought Mithos was asleep.

And with that, Mithos understands his predicament. He’d laugh, if he still had the ability. They actually managed to kill him, reducing the extent of his existence to just the consciousness in his Cruxis Crystal, and that sweet, stupid Genis allowed his misguided attachment to stop him from doing the smart thing and destroy him completely.

“What am I doing…?” Genis asks himself.

“Genis?”

Lloyd’s voice comes in more choppy than Genis’, and Mithos doesn’t understand why. He knows, to a certain extent, that the consciousness inside an exphere is heavily linked to its emotions, both positive and negative, but he thought he hated Lloyd much more than he felt sympathetic towards Genis.

“...if you’re greedy and try to get everything, you’ll fail,” is what Mithos tunes back into, when he realizes Genis is speaking. “Like me…”

It’s true, one of the reasons Mithos split the worlds in the first place: so no one could, and so that fewer people even knew what else there was to get. And yet, it’s something he wants to reject with the whole of his being. Just like Lloyd, he wants to save the girl and the world. And just like Lloyd, he’s going to be disappointed.

“I wanted to be friends with both you and Mithos.” There’s a slight wobble to Genis’ voice, and it wouldn’t surprise Mithos if the boy was close to tears. “Mithos was the first friend I've ever had that was my race… But in the end, with my own hands I…”

Genis killed him, and Genis saved him. He wants it all, too. And he’s going to regret it.

“I’m sorry, Genis. He was your friend, and I…”

“I don’t want you to apologize for that. He’s the one with the wrong idea, and friends need to be able to tell each other when they’re going too far. I…”

Genis’ hands are warm. Even with the limited senses Mithos has in his crystal, that comes through clear as day, and it’s not hard to remember the feeling of Genis’ soft, small hands around his.

“Is that… Mithos’ Cruxis Crystal...?”

“I’m sorry.” Genis pauses. “I picked it up in the tower, after… but I couldn’t bring myself to destroy it…” A pause only short enough for him to catch a breath. “I tried to! I… thought I should just… smash it with a rock, but that felt too… too cruel, too direct, and I couldn’t…” The next breath Genis takes is sharp. “So I thought maybe I could just do magic, burn it, or… but I kept getting the incantations wrong. And I couldn’t just…”

The silence that follows feels like it lasts a lifetime. With his lack of senses, Mithos can’t tell if time even passes, since all he feels is the gentle warmth of Genis’ hands around him, and the atmosphere of Heimdall that hasn’t changed in four thousand years, until finally, Genis exhales. It’s hard to tell whether it’s a sigh or a sob, but it’s easy to tell the weight Genis feels he needs to bear.

“I thought, maybe I could… prove him wrong. I could show him the regenerated world…”

“I see…”

“Lloyd, tomorrow… Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

“I know. Dammit, I know… I don’t want anyone else to have to die…”

It’s quiet for another long time, and Mithos assumes the conversation to be over. Genis still has his hands wrapped around his Cruxis Crystal, their warmth enveloping him in a thick blanket, a barrier between him and the rest of the world even more than the crystal itself. It’s comforting but also stifling. Mithos decides he’ll never understand these people when he notices Genis’ short, staggered breaths, his small, silent sobs. What kind of idiot cries over an enemy?

 

* * *

 

“Can you believe it, Mithos?”

_No, I can’t._

“Half-elves in Heimdall… I wonder how long it’s been since any were let in.”

_Four thousand years, and you should know that._

“It’s got to be a long time, so Lloyd is pretty impressive, huh?”

_In all the wrong ways._

“I’m not going to let this momentum go to waste. I’m grateful, of course, but I want to - no, I need to take the next step by myself.”

_It’s no use. Elves aren’t going to change. If four thousand years and a world shift hasn’t done anything, what can one little boy do?_

“Tomorrow, after… No matter what happens, I’m going to try to talk to people. Even if we have differences, we have similarities, too. I want to connect with them.”

_You can’t connect with someone who doesn’t want to be connected. It’s the same mistake you made with me._

“I know it’s going to be difficult, but if I managed to change your heart, if even a little, I know I can change everyone else’s, too.”

_The both of us are brick walls. The only way either one of us gets to move forward is by destroying the other._

“You know… I was really happy, spending time with you.”

_Because you weren’t spending time with the real me._

“And I think you liked spending time with me, too.”

_Because you’re blinded by optimism._

“So, when it’s all over… I hope we get to have fun again.”

_Keep dreaming._

“Good night, Mithos.”

_Good night, Genis._

 

* * *

 

Lloyd and his exphere are a beastly combination. His mother nurtured it well, which must be the reason it’s grown so much in such a relatively short time. As a result, not only does Lloyd manage to defeat Kratos in single combat, he manages to hurt the angel non-lethally, despite both of them giving the fight their all.

Of course, it’s futile, because the only way to release Origin’s seal is if all of Kratos’ mana leaves his body, which is certain death anyway.

_You can’t always get what you want, Lloyd_ , Mithos thinks to himself. _Will you choose your beloved over the world again?_

Lloyd doesn’t get the opportunity to choose. Kratos chooses for him, and his body crumples, collapsing to the ground as his life leaves him - or it would, if Yuan didn’t appear out of nowhere, cradling his former companion, extending a lifeline in the form of sharing his own mana, something only possible because the both of them have been angels for such a long time. Even the girl Chosen, who has completed most of her transformation, likely wouldn’t be able to tap into her body’s mana, altering it to suit that of someone else and actually transfer it as well. She wouldn’t have enough experience for that.

Lloyd really has all the luck in the world.

“Looks like I’ve failed to die once more…”

How typical, Kratos is granted a miracle to save him from certain death, and the first thing he does with it is make a self-deprecating remark. Lloyd sure enjoys surrounding himself with dramatic suicidal traitors who fail at everything they attempt.

“What will you accomplish by dying? Nothing! There is no meaning in dying!”

Mithos wants to laugh, or shout. Anything.

_Look at me!_ He wishes he could yell. _The only reason your stupid plan has_ any _chance of success is because of_ my _death!_

A small saving grace is that Origin has always been sympathetic to Mithos, more than the others. It’s difficult to tell his emotions since his features are always set to some sort of gruff, not unlike Kratos, but the feeling Mithos gets from him is profoundly sad.

“Never again shall anyone make use of my power,” he says, and when Lloyd argues that people are suffering, “That situation was born from the weakness of creatures who are unable to accept those that are different.”

“That may be true, but mistakes can be corrected.”

Origin shakes his head and his next words mirror Mithos' own thoughts, “Some mistakes cannot be corrected.”

Martel’s failed vessel steps forward to stand before Origin next to Lloyd. “Even so. We have to do everything we can,” she says resolutely. “I won’t say I understand Martel perfectly, but when we were one, I could feel the love she has for everything in the world. Please give us another chance!”

There’s a small pause where Mithos is certain Origin sizes up the girl, to determine the veracity of her claims and to measure their value, but Lloyd speaks up before he can pass judgment.

“Exactly. I'm not gonna give up. From the moment they are born, everyone has the right to live. I want to reclaim that. Humans, elves, half-elves, dwarves, and even Summon Spirits… Everyone has a right to life!”

A foolish notion. For some people to live, others must die. That’s the way of the world and no amount of idealism can change that. Surely Origin understands that. He’s been with Mithos for so, so long, after all.

“Origin.” Kratos’ voice is sapped of any and all strength, and just pushing out those three syllables sounds like it took all of his energy, but he continues. “For almost an eternity, I thought that the only way to save this world was to cling to Mithos' ideals. Just as you once agreed with him, I, too, thought his was the only way. But Lloyd is different.” He has to take a moment to catch his breath there. “He will fight to realize all his ideals, even the unrealistic ones. And he is strong… Strong enough to give a man like me hope again after so many years.”

“We are all disillusioned,” Yuan says. “But you must agree that this world is not the world we fought for. Please lend us your aid in correcting our waylaid course.”

Origin rubs his chin with one of his four hands, and then looks in Genis’ direction. He catches Mithos’ attention for a moment, no longer than the blink of an eye, but it's enough for him to let Mithos know that he's lost. Origin bows his head.

“Show me the strength of your devotion.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are so not going the way Mithos wants.


	12. Acid Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos remembers the past.

Origin was the last roadblock in Lloyd’s way, and he managed to charm his way through as ever. Mithos has run out of options, and his thoughts race faster than ever to come up with something, anything he can do to stop them from ruining everything he’s worked for in his life.

The most pressing problem: he has no body. He needs an angelic body so he can return to the tower, to Derris-Kharlan. He’s stuck in this blasted immobile rock and he’s running out of time.

Expheres react to emotions. It’s a last-ditch effort but he focuses all of himself, all four thousand years of anger and grief into the thought **_I need a body_**.

Mithos’ Cruxis Crystal flies out of Genis’ pouch, hesitates in mid-air for a fraction of a second, then shoots off towards Lloyd, finding purchase on his skin and clinging tight as if they were magnets. As soon as the rock touches flesh, Mithos’ senses flare to life with the intensity of a roaring fire.

The mana is suitable. Rudimental, an unfinished transformation, but he’s in a pinch and it will do. He’s surprised to hear himself mumbling, but it doesn’t matter. He just needs to take control of this body and-

“Lloyd, look out!”

His connection to Lloyd’s body breaks abruptly, and in its place is nothing but light and warmth. But the mana is still suitable, and he latches on, digs his claws in as deep as they can go, before his new host can stop him.

“Fine. I’ll just take _this_ body,” he hears himself say with Colette’s voice.

“No!” Lloyd shakes his head, eyes wild and disbelieving under a swelling black eye. He reaches out for one of the sleeves of Colette’s dress, clutching them loosely in a hand that can no longer form tight fists after his fight. “Wait! We made a promise to -”

Mithos shakes him off, throwing him against the stone of Origin’s seal with the girl’s angelic strength. When Lloyd’s back hits the rock, the boy lets out a pained groan, and it takes him a moment to even get his breath back, never mind moving to get back up.

“What do I care?” Mithos says with a chuckle. “I’m leaving this filthy world behind!”

He grins at Lloyd’s friends, contorting Colette’s face particularly much at the fuss the other Chosen makes over Lloyd’s broken body against Origin’s stone. He returns the eye contact with Origin from before, hoping the girl’s big, blue eyes can translate even a fraction of the burning hatred he feels, and relocates his new body to the proper coordinates in the Tower of Salvation.

The first thing he does in the control room is destroy the mortal way up. The tower has served its purpose and has become a liability. With any luck, if he ejects the paneling, some of it will fall on that blasted elven town and kill all of them. He chuckles as he imagines the carnage; the sheets of metal crashing down onto their pathetic wood buildings, hot from the separating explosions; the sheets digging into the soft earth, blocking escape routes, throwing up sand and clods of grass, maybe even starting fires; the chaos of thousands of years of inertia suddenly being thrown into disarray. His chuckles evolve into peals of laughter, growing almost maniacal until he decides he’s had enough.

He needs to plan for contingency. Now that Origin has betrayed him, too, he can't be sure he won't be followed. When he bends over the next console to activate Welgaia’s trap system, a few errant drops of water fall with the motion. He stares for a few moments at the wet patches before realizing they came from Colette’s eyes. He shakes her head, wipes the tears off her cheeks and sets up the defense and evacuation systems.

_Do you really want to destroy your birthplace?_

_They’ve been nothing but awful since before I was born. Even if you don’t care about what they did to me, you know how Genis and Raine ended up._

_Of course I care about what happened to you. But the elves…_

_They deserve it._

_Mithos…_

He shoves her presence down. He doesn’t need another idealistic mind to argue with. Shaking his head, he walks over to another console, tall against the wall with a small screen, several sliders and the usual keyboard. He sets the sliders to his own mana signature and keys in the command to initiate the incubation process.

_Mithos?_

_Shut up._

_Wait, if you could do that, why did you need to go through the trouble of making sure I could be born?_

_Because we didn’t have a template, you idiot._

_I don’t think she’d have been happy being brought back, though…_

_You don’t know anything._

_She really loved this world._

_Shut up._

_She wouldn’t want you to do this._

**_Shut up!_ **

He repeats the words like a mantra while he finishes his preparations to disconnect Derris-Kharlan from Sylvarant and Tethe’alla. “Shut up, shut up, shut up shut up _shut up_ ,” as he types commands, Colette’s fingers moving ever more stiff as she wrests control over her body back from him. With all his effort, not even having the spare concentration for anger, he has to curl the hand his crystal is wedged in into a fist and slam the last button before he allows her to claim her victory over him.

_Mithos, I’m going to wait for Lloyd. Nobody should have to save the world by himself._

Mithos doesn’t answer, choosing instead to lock his consciousness inside his Cruxis Crystal and wait until Colette lead him to his body again.

Colette sits on the stone in front of the teleporter to Welgaia, quietly humming a lullaby to herself as she waits. It’s an old elven song Mithos and Martel’s mother passed on, and Mithos repurposed it as an angelic prayer by changing the words. The girl really does resemble his sister too much, and Mithos lets the nostalgic melody envelop him, allows himself to remember the time before the unthinkable happened, when they were wounded, alone and exhausted, but happy.

Suddenly, Colette is on her feet.

“Lloyd!”

He takes her hands and pulls her into a tight hug. “Colette! He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

Colette shakes her head. Lloyd frowns, unconvinced, and wipes a tear off her cheek.

“Is Heimdall…?”

It’s Lloyd’s turn to shake his head. He bites his lip and looks at the ground as another tear rolls down Colette’s face.

“We saved as many as we could, but the town…”

“The town can be rebuilt, just like Luin… I’m glad it wasn’t worse,” Colette says with a small smile on her lips.

Lloyd nods, takes her hands in his again and rests his forehead against hers.

“It _should_ have been worse,” Mithos growls with Colette’s voice, causing Lloyd’s head to snap up. “Don’t you know what they did?”

Thanks to lifetimes of mana manipulation, Mithos is able to show Lloyd and Colette his recollection of what happened that fateful day. Derris-Kharlan’s craggy rock platforms make way for a clearing in a lush forest, though the image faded with time. Still, Martel’s lifeless body is clear, laid on the ground in a pool of her own blood, Mithos’ shaking hands hovering over her. He never was as good with healing artes as she’d been, and her wounds were too deep. Yuan was standing over them, creases deep between his brows and an animalistic snarl on his lips, his face streaked with tears. His hands crackled with electric mana strong enough to repel all his hair away from his body.

The culprit was a human, his appearance long forgotten, replaced with Kratos’ since he’s the only human that mattered in Mithos’ mind. It could have been any human, every human. They all equally shared blame. So did the elves, for running them out of their home.

_What they all did!_

The forest lights up in flames, burning away the verdant greens, and where the trees fall, they’re replaced with wooden beams, scattered cobblestones and torn cloth sheets. The scene changes to that of a city bathed in red; houses that were once even more stately than in Meltokio, delicate architecture that human hands could never have put together, flags decorated with a coat of arms that no longer existed on high poles, all goes up in smoke.

_Just because we lived there._

And then the noise starts. It’s a cacophony of angry voices, too numerous and loud to separate words, that drill deep into the soul. It’s shouting, screaming, yelling; men and women enraged, hurling swears and curses and slurs, the constant noise of existence as a half-elf that Mithos couldn’t avoid.

“Lloyd, calm down,” Colette says gently as she takes control back, and the image and noise fade into the background. Only one person is still screaming, but soon Lloyd realizes it’s him, and he stops.

_...Why do you interfere?! We both want the same thing! I just wanted to save the world and my sister! To have a world where no one will be persecuted!_

Colette shakes her head, squeezes the first that contains Mithos’ crystal, and closes his connection to her body. Lloyd holds on to Colette for dear life, unable to trust his legs to keep him upright as he takes deep breaths to stop from vomiting.

“I didn’t know,” he mumbles.

“I know,” Colette says softly as she runs her hand through his hair. “Are you ok?”

Lloyd nods, even though he’s still hanging off of her. “...I knew it was bad, but…” Slowly, he forces his legs to stop shaking, and tempers his breathing. He shakes his head. “It doesn’t change anything. I told Zelos, too. Even if he may have had a reason for doing all this, that doesn’t make it ok. And we’re gonna stop him.”

Colette gives him a tight, lingering hug. When she pulls away, she looks around, as if she just noticed Lloyd is alone. “Where’s everyone else?”

“They got caught in a trap and we all wound up separated. Origin said they should be in the city somewhere, though. And Zelos mentioned something about a Derris emblem?”

Mithos mentally curses him. Zelos must have been snooping, trying to learn his weaknesses even before he put all his chips on Lloyd. How the boy can trust someone that shifty after all this time is beyond him.

Colette just nods. She picks at the crystal in her palm to no avail, the effort contorting her mouth into a pout.

“It won’t come off?”

“No… But I think it’s ok. The feeling of something eating through my mind is gone now. I think he’s gone dormant.”

“That’s good to hear,” Lloyd says, sighing through a smile. “Come on, let’s find the others.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the next stop on the headcanon train. I suppose this diverts from canon a little, since in the game Mithos can pick any body, but I thought this would make a little more sense.
> 
> The scene with the burning city is from Tales of Fandom, an event referenced by Martel. Apparently the capital city of some place that took them in got torched and they had to leave, and Martel said that Mithos looked like he was about to break, muttering something like "Then where do we go?", something he references in his final confrontation. I thought it seemed appropriate.


	13. Light Spear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos watches the Fugitive's demise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh I had like a million problems with this, due to my normal writing program being slower than a stoned snail, and the other program causing formatting issues, so if this chapter looks different, blame it on that. If I missed anything egregious, let me know and I'll fix it asap.

Mithos reserves his strength for observing. He limits his consciousness to a passive sliver which he lets ride along with Colette's. He can see what she sees, hear what she hears and, unfortunately, feel what she feels.

"It's so... cold," she says as she looks at the fully evacuated Welgaia. The sight of the immaculate streets, empty buildings and vast expanses completely devoid of even what little life they held the last time she saw it is almost enough to bring a tear to her eye. She wonders if Mithos has given up on even his own angels. He hasn't, but only because you can't give up on something you never particularly cared for in the first place.

With his eyes steeled straight ahead, Lloyd takes her hand. The warmth from that simple gesture radiates through her body, settling lightly in her chest, and she can't help but smile despite everything.

"Let's go," he says quietly, and takes off.

His footsteps through the empty city are more sure than the tight grip on Colette's hand would suggest, but despite his nerves, he keeps looking ahead, ready to take on whatever surprises Mithos has planned.

A few automatons from the escape hatch have been released into the city, but it's so quiet even Lloyd's breathing echoes through the streets, so Colette is always aware where one is stomping around long before it comes into view. Mithos hopes they can at least pick off some of Lloyd's separated allies, but that hope is dashed when after a long wander through the city, Lloyd suddenly runs off.

"Zelos!" he shouts up at an empty platform halfway up a building.

Through Colette, Mithos can't see the event unfolding around the magic circle showing through the transparent crystal of the platform, but he doesn't even need to read the circle to know it's one of the fear illusions.

After a slight pause during which Colette's body catches up with her mind, she runs after Lloyd. The illusion shown to her is different from the one up above, but Lloyd, being the new bearer of the Eternal Sword, is the only one immune. Colette sees the angel assigned to her case, Remiel. An utterly unremarkable man but for his ambition. He couldn't make it as a cardinal before his ascension, so he set his sights higher, and Mithos had used that. He didn't even feel the slightest bit upset when Kratos killed him.

"You were born by mistake," the angel sneers with a pleasant face. "Had you not been born, all these misfortunes would have not fallen upon everyone. You poor, poor Chosen who'll destroy the world."

It's an elegant trap, Mithos thinks to himself, that pinpoints its target's deepest insecurity and attacks it mercilessly. It draws on an exphere's desire to be one with its host, manipulates it into drawing out the most negative emotions, and then projects them in a familiar form. If it weren't for the sheer amount of mana each circle consumes, Mithos would have them in all the ranches, but even three so close to the Seed is pushing it, and unlike kings of yore, Mithos knows restraint.

Colette knows that what she's seeing can't be real - Remiel died, bleeding out on the sanctum dais in the Tower of Salvation right in front of her - but the spell draws on emotion beyond reason, and she takes a step back without even realizing it.

"No, that's not right," she mumbles to herself, trying to summon Lloyd's words to her instead of the angel's. "I've never-"

"Never brought misfortune on anyone?" the projection of Remiel interrupts, his gentle eyes wide with surprise. "Really? Countless lives were lost because you valued your own life more than theirs." He takes a step towards her and leans in. "Remember Chocolat?"

Colette takes another step backwards as images of a young brunette flash across her mind; her defiance of the Desians that raided her family shop; her bright and genuine smile as she talked about her pilgrimages; her tears as she was being dragged away by a pair of surly half-elves and her pain when she was told of her grandmother's grim fate. Her breath hitches and her eyes burn.

"You can't escape the suffering you've wrought. It's etched onto your soul, child." Remiel raises his arms in a magnanimous gesture. "But Lord Yggdrasill can save you. Stop your foolish notions and join his efforts. He'll reunite the worlds and save everyone. Just imagine, your life will finally have meaning and value."

"All you have to do is pledge your allegiance to me," Mithos' adult voice resounds, its source another projection high in the air, looking down on the scene. "As soon as you do that, you'll be saved from the shadow's grasp."

Colette looks up, her thoughts flashing to the crystal still embedded in her palm, and hope drains out of her. She simulates the outcomes of different choices in her head, but she can't help the propensity for self-sacrifice she was bred for, drilled into her since before she could form a coherent thought, and she's close, so close to giving up.

"Listen to me, both of you! I've come for you guys, I'm right down below!" Lloyd's voice pierces the silence - and the illusion. "Sheena! Do you really think it's better for the people of Mizuho to become part of the Age of Lifeless Beings? And Zelos! Do you really think it's okay for Seles to become the next Chosen who could be sacrificed at any time?"

Colette smiles despite herself, imagining Lloyd's words if he knew she was just as close to giving in to despair, as well as Martel's, who had wanted more than anything for Mithos to stop his plans, as if he was perverting her wishes. Mithos' mind is split trying to reconcile Colette's feelings with his own, and responded by shutting them all out.

"Both of you have to decide for yourselves. But I have faith in you. I know you won't run away, even if what we're trying to do is difficult! Don't forget. Your lives have value just by being alive and being there!"

Without knowing it, he spoke to Colette as well.

"Value in... just being alive?" she mumbles.

"Ludicrous. No life has value just by being alive," the projection of Mithos says bluntly, his words appearing to echo off the walls of the empty buildings around them.

"Shut up! There's a significance in being born. But if that's not good enough for you, I'll give them another value. They're both valuable because they're my friends!"

And with that, the illusion literally shatters. Cracks appear in the air over the platform, and in Remiel's form before Colette, and the world breaks apart in ever smaller pieces, until nothing is left but motes of mana dust that falls to the floor, and a single machine hanging off the bottom of the platform.

"Heh, that's a pretty pathetic value, but I suppose it'll do," Zelos' voice sounds at last from atop the platform. His voice is cheerful and lax as usual, but Colette thinks she can hear the facade wearing down.

"You reject my offer?" the Yggdrasill voice sounds tinny now that it's no longer amplified by the illusion.

"You know what I wish for, yet you still interfere?!" a different tinny voice Mithos has never heard before, but Colette recognizes as Seles, Zelos' half-sister.

"Sorry, but I've got no choice. The guy who decided my value believes in me and tells me not to run away!" He laughs, and it's definitely more strained than any of the humorless chuckles Mithos heard before. "I trust you, too, Lloyd," he mumbles, soft enough that only an angel could hear. "I, the sorta-valuable Zelos, am headed your way!"

With an obscene gesture at the sky, Zelos leaps off the platform. His ankles buckle, and his exphere is likely the only reason they don't break. As he jumps, the person left on the platform - Sheena - mutters a swear in her language, and makes for the edge herself.

"Are you running away again?!" comes another voice, tinny and muffled, which Colette recognizes ass belonging to Kuchinawa, the idiot that blames the unfit nail for the hole in the wall, forgetting the hammer and the hand that held it. Not that Mithos can really blame him. When someone you love dies, it's natural to want someone to pay. And why not choose the easiest target?

"I'll raze the entire village of Mizuho," Yggdrasill's artificial voice warns.

"Oh, shove it up your - I'm not running! The people of Mizuho are waiting for us to reunite the worlds. Betraying that trust would truly be running away!" She takes a deep breath and follows Zelos down.

Lloyd pulls the both of them in a hug, and Colette chuckles at the way both of them flail to get free.

"Welcome back, you two," he says, the relief on his face showing his young age for the first time in a long while. "And thanks."

"Psh, It's not like I can really run away from the fact that I was born," Sheena mumbles, a hand on her chest as she wills herself to calm down from both the psychological attack and heartfelt reunion.

"Exactly," Zelos says as he noogies Lloyd's temple. "Especially since we now have our new-found pathetic value and all." He huffs. "Guess I'm gonna try and face my challenges head on."

Lloyd beams at them both, and his grin only widens when Colette runs up for a hug as well, and Mithos is the only one who doesn't share the infectious joy that abounds.

_What possible value does one burdened to exist with cursed blood have? Sometimes running is the only way to save yourself._ Mithos is the one who knows that better than anyone. You can't save everyone, and running headstrong into challenges is the best way to get hurt. _Humans are... so arrogant._

There's a click over their heads, and the automaton that clung to the magic circle drops down in the midst of the small gathering.

"`Offensive mode engaged,`" a toneless, mechanical voice comes from it's sound box as it raises a pair of spindly frontal limbs. "`I will take your selfish desires. Now sleep.`" And the mana charge between those limbs explodes as it brings it down on Lloyd, the closest person to it.

Lloyd is caught by surprise, and the mana explosion catches him and keeps him inside, though the effect is only as if he's hit with a thousand tiny paper cuts. Sheena appears behind it, whacking it with a combination of seals to nullify its mana output, while Colette wails on the dome in its belly with her rings. The machine wasn't made for fighting, and Mithos knows it stands no chance, even against half of the enemy's force. Zelos appears to realize this as well, taking Lloyd from its grasp and soothing his wounds with a healing spell.

The girls' combined effort alone is enough to stop the machine in its tracks, and it's not long before the crystal dome is shattered and its innards accessible.

"Ooh, let me," Zelos says, shimmying towards the machine. He reaches inside, looking for something, and pulls out a shiny object. Aw, dang, it's busted."

How deep has he rooted through Mithos' sensitive information? Not just anyone would know the illusory automatons run on Derris Emblems. Sure, Mithos himself had been preoccupied, but surely Pronyma, or an angel would have seen him snooping. His organization is flawed beyond reproach if a human, even a Chosen under his control, could move so freely.

"Maybe I can fix it, if it's not too complicated?" Lloyd suggests, holding out his hand to inspect the broken emblem.

Zelos explains what a functional emblem is supposed to look like, how it functions, and how they're made. Lloyd nods eagerly at the information, and Mithos seethes. He wishes he could just stop this now, interfere before they cause an even bigger mess, but he's not in control of this body, and it's far more likely they stop him - forever.

"It sounds like it'd be easier to just try to find another one," he concludes. "And I can't really do anything with just this, but if we can't find a whole one, I'll give it a shot."

Zelos ruffles Lloyd's wild quiff and loops his arm around the boy's neck. "That's my bud!"

Lloyd pushes him off with a chuckle, hiding his flushing cheeks by turning away, and takes Zelos and Colette's hands to march off with.

"Hey, what's this all about?" Zelos protests, wriggling his hand free from Lloyd's grip.

"Sorry, I only have two hands. Come on, we need to find the others!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I changed the illusion a little, as well as the situation with the derris emblem. I think narratively it just works a little better this way. I like to think the three magic circle minibosses are mostly there to run the illusions and to assist Mithos with extra mana and defense, or something, which is why they show up again, combined at the end of the game. They're pretty weak for the point they appear in the game, after all...
> 
> Also, whoops, my ships are showing.


	14. Angel Feathers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos takes the elevator.

On their search through the abandoned city, Sheena suggests trying to break one of the roaming automatons, but its machinery doesn't give up any materials that could be of use in repairing the Derris Emblem. Zelos shrugs and flashes her an I-told-you-so look, to which she huffs and stomps off.

Time doesn't seem to pass on Derris-Kharlan. The void in the sky is motionless save for swirls of purple mist and the occasional flickering star, further adding to the sense of isolation, but the clock is ticking, and any second their friends are left to their own devices in Mithos' traps is another second closer to their potential surrender. Lloyd has never been a star at patience in all of Colette's memory of him, and his journey may have improved him some, but not enough to stop him fidgeting with his buttons and the strings on his collar, or trailing his fingers through his hair. His fingers refuse to still, and Colette can't keep from staring. She's worried. They all are.

Lloyd's had enough. He suddenly stops and looks around, then marches towards the nearest high-rise. "I'm gonna see if I can get onto the roof, use it as a vantage point," he says, barely looking back to see if everyone is fine with that, and the girls and Zelos pick up their pace to keep up with him as he disappears into the building.

Lloyd taps his foot as he waits for Zelos to unlock the elevator with the mana signature of his Cruxis Crystal, another privilege Mithos remembers too late to revoke. The sound of it carries through the building, creating a tense symphony with the gnashing of Sheena's teeth and the rustling of Colette rubbing the fabric of her sleeve. The nervous orchestra continues through the time the four of them spend in the lift, and even Zelos' mask slips slightly as he puts his thumb to his mouth to chew on the nail, although he remains leaned against the wall in a meticulously careless way.

The lift ride feels like it drags on forever, even if it moves fast enough to cause their stomachs to sink the whole way through. The silence causes seconds to stretch into minutes, and the only thing on Colette's mind is the fear that Mithos' illusions are causing her friends serious emotional damage, a concern mirrored on her companions' faces. It's almost physically painful, and Colette opens her mouth several times to say something, but every time she can't think of anything and shuts it again.

Her stomach feels like it flips when the lift finally stops, and an almost palpable feeling of relief floods the room through the opening doors. All four of them have to control themselves not to rush out, eager to escape the oppressive claustrophobia of the tiny box that took them up.

It doesn't take long for them to find a hatch to the roof after that, and even if the air outside is only slightly less stuffy, Colette finally feels able to breathe again.

"I'll see if I can see someone!" she says, and rushes to an edge of the building to look down the miniature empty streets for anything out of the ordinary. One of her friends, another magic circle, or even just anything that looks like it could keep someone contained.

She hears a rustle behind her, and moments later smells the smoke of a magic flame, followed by the bitter sting of tobacco.

"Ugh, Zelos, do you _have_ to?" Sheena snaps.

Colette turns around on instinct, just in time to see Zelos press a hand to his chest. The other is holding a cigarette to his lips. "Chill, hun, even someone as amazing and handsome as me has to have a vice or two." There's still a smile on his lips, but it seems strained.

"You don't have anything _but_ vices," Sheena grumbles in return, but she just folds her arms and looks over another side of the building.

Colette shakes her head and goes back to looking. Everyone has their own way of dealing with stress, she supposes, and they have better things to do than bicker amongst themselves. After she finds the teleportation circle they entered from, she traces the path they took to get where they are with her eyes, looking for any identifying landmarks, finding the storage building they obtained the Mana Fragment from close to where they'd found Sheena and Zelos. From there she retraces their earlier steps back to the prison area they were held, because it makes sense to keep captives there. She memorizes a few other locations that could be used to trap someone, but none of them feel as promising as the prison.

She relays the information to her friends, and Sheena mentions a location near the information terminals that looks like it contains display cells. Together, they agree that they'll check the prisons first, then follow a path that takes them along a few of the most likely other areas in the shortest time towards the display cells. Zelos makes his way over to the hatch inside, but Lloyd calls out to him before he can pass through.

"Hey, Colette, if we held on to you, you think you could slow your fall enough that we don't die?" he asks, peering over the edge.

Colette follows his gaze, looking down past the uncountable stories of the building they're on, and thinks. She holds out her arm for Lloyd to take, and takes to the sky when he does. She closes her eyes to focus on the weight, and while she could definitely do it with just one person, three would probably be too much. Making a few quick calculations in his head, judging from his perception of Colette's wing strength, an estimation of the three humans' weight and the amount of friction necessary to reduce enough speed on the way down, Mithos agrees. Colette lets Lloyd down and shakes her head.

"Not all three of you."

Lloyd exhales sharply through his nose, but accepts it, and turns back to the elevator, only to see Zelos stand up fluidly from his seated position with his legs dangling down the hatch, the kind of mischievous smirk on face that could only mean he had a brilliant solution hidden up his sleeve.

"Y'know, other than the violent temper and the genocide, Mithos really ain't that bad a boss," he says, making Mithos wish he had hands to strangle him with, and he proudly presents his Cruxis Crystal. "All _kinds_ of company benefits~" With a flourish, he switches the exphere in his key crest with the crystal, and bows deep. Wings like orange petals bloom from his back and unfurl, longer than Colette's but simpler than any of the Seraphim's.

Colette stops for a moment, unable to do anything but stare. She wonders if Zelos had gone through the same process she had through his transformation, and feels a sympathetic twinge of pain in her heart. Beside her, Lloyd and Sheena have similarly had to pause to process this revelation, although Zelos is heedless of their reactions. He languidly saunters over to Sheena and extends his hand to her.

"Now, hold on tight, honey, it's looking to be a bumpy ride~"

Sheena stares at his hand as though it just told her how expheres are made for the first time. Slowly, she raises her head, then her senses return and she stomps down on the roof.

"No! What the hell, Zelos?!" She shakes her head and furiously crosses her arms in front of her. "No, no, I am not dealing with this. Colette, I hope you don't mind?"

"No, of course not," Colette says with a smile, understanding enough and eager to please. She does feel a little jealous of Zelos that he gets to hold Lloyd on the way down, but she can tell leaving Sheena with him wouldn't be a good idea.

Before Zelos can protest with more than just a throaty whine, Sheena takes Colette's hand and leaps off the side of the building. Instinctively, Colette wraps her arms around Sheena and almost in a daze unfurls her wings to slow their perilous drop.

Compared to her, Zelos' flight is more clumsy: his speed varies more, and he's noticeably straining, so Colette realizes he must have had considerably less practice. Either he completed his transformation fairly recently, or he simply didn't use his wings much. Mithos knew it was a little bit of both. It was when Sheena was sent to Sylvarant to assassinate Colette that he contacted Zelos to complete his transformation, so he had mere months to get used to his new body before he joined Lloyd's team and was forced to keep his abilities under wraps. Nevertheless, Lloyd's plan is a success, and the four of them reach solid ground safely and in less time than if they'd taken the lift back down, and they waste no time getting on track to save their friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to believe that Welgaia is actually supposed to be pretty dang big, because Mithos does use it to keep his make-belief perfect society in, and with four thousand years to build it, it should have a pretty decent population, especially since they don't die of natural causes.
> 
> I also wanted to put in some character ...not exactly building but, explanation, I suppose? for Zelos, as well as try to make Mithos' trap feel like a bit more of an actual problem, which is why this chapter even exists, otherwise I would have just gone straight on to rescuing the other half of the team. I just wanted to make my children sweat just a little longer. :)
> 
> I use the words lift and elevator interchangeably because I don't give a h*ck (and English isn't my first language and I don't actually remember which one is for American English again, but it's whatever because word variation makes for a less dull read, or whatever the writing advice is).


	15. Light Spear Cannon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos watches the Judged's demise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this is the Judged, this particular chapter has a warning for suicidal ideation. It's nothing particularly in-depth or graphic, but many of the characters do struggle with it.

They reach the prison in short time, passing the cell Regal broke them out of without stopping. The bars are still broken, bent outwards and cracked through from the sheer amount of force the man applied to it. Colette pays it no mind, but Mithos gets stuck on it, possibly for lack of anything better to do as he waits. He can't understand why Regal wouldn't just use his hands to fight, since he could accomplish anything he could ever dream of if he simply stopped arbitrarily limiting himself. It's likely that even Mithos himself would find it difficult to stand up to power that could snap adamantite bars as if they were mere twigs, although fearing him at this point is useless, since he won't face the man alone anyway, and he's already reduced to a disembodied consciousness in a semi-sentient rock.

Several cell blocks further, Lloyd stops. "It's Presea and Regal," he says, gesturing at one of the empty cells.

Colette still can't see past the illusion, but knows better than to doubt him and holds Sheena and Zelos back from following Lloyd as he picked the lock. She shakes her head with a warning frown, her serious expression enough of a deterrent.

Lloyd picks the lock and calls out to his friends, excited at first, but then his face falls. A murmured combination of voices, one deep and masculine, the other quiet and high, breaks through the illusion, though Colette can't make out any words. Lloyd flails wildly, waving his arms and paws the air in front of him, surprised when his hand gets deflected seemingly by nothing. He calls out again, but still receives no reply and yanks at his hair in frustration.

"Alicia is dead," Regal straining his voice to remain level is the first thing Colette can hear clearly through the noise. This illusion must have conjured up a shared image of loss, as Colette's mind reveals that Alicia was Presea's sister and Regal's fiancÃ©e.

Lloyd looks panicked, looking between three spots that all appear equally empty to Colette. After a moment of heavy silence, suddenly screaming fills the air. Regal's deep "Begone!"; a duo of girls' voices giving a short shriek; and a "No!" from Lloyd as he jumps forward and reaches out towards the emptiness, followed by a grunt as his hand slips past his target.

"Presea..." Lloyd mumbles, shaking his head as the murmurs start up again.

"...made me a new body..." "...dont know for certain..." "...believe me...?" "... _destroyed_ her exphere...!" "Stop!"

Lloyd blanches, his face draining of color in a way Colette rarely sees, and his eyes shift between two places rapidly, and she knows the gears in his head must be turning at roughly the same speed.

"Stop it, both of you!" he yells and throws his arms to the side, only to be immediately rebuffed from both sides and spun around with enough force to knock him flat on his face.

Colette is grateful she held on to Zelos' hand as she's only barely able to hold him back from running towards Lloyd, and only after a too-long moment of trying to wrench his arm free, nearly pulling hers out of its socket, he relents. Sheena just gasps, clinging tightly to Colette in a shared feeling of horror, and Colette is grateful for that, too. If this illusion could reduce the most level-headed members of their coterie to infighting, she dreads to imagine the damage it could do to more impulsive and emotional members like Zelos and Sheena.

The noise returns again, frantic but hushed. There's a long slice along the side of Lloyd's right arm that leads into his palm, cut clean to the bone, and his right elbow is bent in an awkward position, dislocated if not broken, but he doesn't let either injury stop him from scrambling back to his feet, although he does put as little weight on either arm as he possibly can. He leaves a bloody handprint on the ground, but before long he's standing again.

"It doesn't matter, just settle down!" he groans. "Why are you even fighting each other? I thought you understood each other!"

A part of the illusion breaks away, scattering into mana particles as before and revealing Presea and Regal, as well as the fake Alicia, but plenty still stands and the image is hazy.

"Lloyd," Presea gasps, and her axe falls clattering to the ground. "I'm sorry..."

"Your arm... you aren't an illusion..." Regal mumbles. His head is lowered so his fringe covers his eyes, a sign of discomfort and guilt, a common companion to mentions of Alicia and his time in jail.

"W-what's the matter? Sis, he was going to attack me!" the fake Alicia cries out. "I was so happy to see you again, and... just like before..." She sobs, scuttling to the wall, shaking.

Presea turns back to her, her usually vacant eyes haunted with concern and doubt. She opens her mouth, but her breath is stuck in her throat and no words come out.

"I can't believe you'd do that to me, Regal... I thought you'd be happy, but... There's just no coming back from murder, is there...?" She shakes her head and wipes the tears from her eyes. "If you can't go back, what's left...?"

Regal remains silent, standing motionless in place, but the muscles in his bared arms are tense, revealing the intense control it takes him to stay still.

"If - if that's how it is, I don't want this! If you can't live with yourself, just end it!" There's a collective muted gasp as Alicia yells, thick tears rolling down her cheeks, but even with that, she isn't done yet. "If he can't forgive himself, sis, why should you? Here's your chance to end it all!"

Five pairs of eyes stare wide at the illusion, its words hitting them all with the force of a meteor storm. Lloyd is the only one looking at the ground, his legs tremble and his breathing is ragged, and it looks like he's using all of his strength to keep his arms up and out between Presea and Regal. Sheena's grip on Colette's arm stiffens to the point of constricting bloodflow, while Zelos' arm goes completely limp.

He chuckles joylessly. "That's not funny," he growls.

Four of them have the same thought echoing through their heads, an unspoken understanding none of them dare to admit, though Regal likely doesn't realize he's not the only one. ' _You should have died instead._ ' Mithos is the only one to share Presea's instinctual desire for vengeance.

"It's for the best, isn't it?" Mithos' adult voice echoes through the prison as a projection of him appears behind Alicia. "If you're killed, you'll no longer feel guilt, and if you kill him, you'll have your revenge."

Alicia steps back into Yggdrasill's welcoming arms and he brushes the tears off her face. It sickens Mithos to see a reflection of himself pretend to be so warm, but it's the thing that causes the illusion's victims the most anguish, so he pushes his revulsion down.

"It hurts to lose someone you love," Yggdrasill continues, projected voice flush with emotion, but only for a moment. "At my side, the unjustly slain will be revived, and the perpetrators will pay for their crimes."

"Don't make me laugh, Mithos," Lloyd growls low through gritted teeth. "You don't care about anyone but yourself. Presea, Regal, you know that!" He's starting to look pale, both from the blood still leaking out of the gash in his arm, as well as from suppressing the pain in the elbow he can't hold straight. "Dying won't settle anything," he says forcefully. "Killing won't solve anything."

Presea and Regal have turned their gazes to Lloyd, a semblance of sanity returning to their eyes.

"Mere cold logic," Yggdrasill dismisses. "People are not moved by logic. Only those who've known no loss have the privilege of an 'objective' view." He puts a hand on Alicia's head as if to stroke her hair. "In the real world, there are emotions and consequences. When someone you love is killed, you hate the murderer. And murderers must be punished."

"And then _you're_ the murderer, meaning someone will have to kill _you_ ," Lloyd grits out. "It doesn't end! And death isn't paying for anything! You're just running away!" He shakes his head wildly and wobbles slightly on his feet from the vertigo it gives him. "I'm not that smart, but I can follow this train of thought to the end of the line. It doesn't solve anything."

Presea's hands fall slack against her body and she stares at the floor, her expression unreadable as always, while Regal has his hands covering his face as he shakes his head.

"What about me? What about _my_ feelings? I was _murdered_!" Alicia cries out, her fists tightly balled at her side.

"Alicia wouldn't say things like that," both Presea and Regal say in unison, the doubt gone from both their eyes, and the illusion finally breaks entirely. Flakes of mana like snowflakes float in the air around, falling gently until the ground absorbs them upon contact.

Colette lets Zelos go, and he runs towards Lloyd, chanting an incantation under his breath so it's ready when he reaches the boy. A white, soothing light wraps around Lloyd's arms and stitches him back together again. Colette and Sheena join them, though at a much more leisurely pace now that they know Lloyd will be alright.

"Are you two ok?" Lloyd asks with a concerned smile on his face after he catches his breath. "I was worried."

Regal puts a manacled hand on his shoulder. "Lloyd, it's we who should be saying that."

Presea nods. "I'm sorry. I... had become lost in my emotions... closed off my heart and turned away from people who were trying to atone for their crimes because it was easier to hate then to forgive. I should never have attacked Regal, and... thank you for stopping me," she says quietly.

"You're more mature than we've given you credit for, Lloyd. I'm sorry," Regal says. "Please accept my heartfelt apology for my cowardice. To lose the will to atone for my crimes by taking comfort in the feeling of being punished was wrong. You're only too right. Death is not punishment. Punishment is living with one's crime and working to atone for it."

Lloyd beams at them, their words returning color to his face just as much as Zelos' healing.

"Oh man, I gotta get Yggdrasill to hook me up then, 'cause I can't die for a _long_ time," Zelos quips.

Lloyd just rolls his eyes, but the smile doesn't leave his face.

"There are so many things you can do before you die. And I don't think everything has to be forgiven. But no matter how painful things may be, you just can't let yourself get stuck in the past. You have to look forward," Lloyd says, nodding to himself as he allows Zelos to look over his wounds.

Of course the boy would think that's deep. He forgets that there are those who can see no improvement in the future, who are mired so deep in the hurt of the past, that something must be done before they can move on. _Only ever looking forward? That's how you forget the past. The countless lives that were lost... and the pain of those that suffered. Crimes must be met with punishment._ Even if Mithos is forced to be the only one who remembers - who really understands - he'll be the one to make sure the Great Kharlan War never has the chance to be repeated.

An automaton drops down from the ceiling of the prison cell and hovers menacingly towards the group. "`Offensive mode engaged,`" it announces much like the previous one. "`Sinners, be judged.`"

It, too, launches an attack, but even with Lloyd again sitting the fight out due to his injuries, this one fares no better. It falls even quicker due to the addition of both Regal and Presea's sheer physical strength despite their emotional exhaustion, and once again deep within its belly, broken pieces of a Derris Emblem are found.

Zelos explains the material to the new arrivals while Lloyd salvages the scraps he can and attempts to recreate a complete one. The result is still incomplete, though the runes present should nullify some amount of the illusory magic, and Mithos starts counting down the minutes until they inevitably defeat the last obstacle in their path to the Seed. At least by that time, his body should be ready. He'll be ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Reggie voice]
> 
> I changed Alicia's dialogue quite a lot because I didn't find the things she said in the game convincing at all. There's no explanation for why she'd be alive, and she just riles people up against each other, which is just completely transparent. Ah well.


	16. Victory Light Spear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos prepares for the end.

As anticipated, Colette's other potential trap sites turn out to be a bust, and they hurry past them to get to the display cells Sheena noticed. At one point, an automaton blocks a narrow alleyway, and before she's even realized it, Colette has blasted it into smithereens, allowing her friends unhindered passage. She pauses for only a moment to look at her hands in surprise, frowning at the crystal still embedded in her palm, but shakes her head. Mithos is silent, and she blames the adrenaline and worry instead. Mithos doesn't know where the outburst came from either; he's just passively along for the ride at this point, and even if he hadn't been, he has no reason to want these people to reach their goal any faster than they already are.

The display cells were originally designed to showcase technological marvels, or relics from ages past, with descriptions and a list of pros and cons, for the angels to reference when deciding which parts of history and progress to keep and which to destroy. Now, they're empty, their contents taken in the mass evacuation to the deeper regions of Derris-Kharlan so no unworthy hands could misuse them, all except for one, which contains two half-elves.

Raine stands tall, arms folded and she taps her foot on the ground with a tight expression, usually reserved for when Lloyd or Colette has the overly optimistic idea to trust someone who only days earlier had a knife to their throats. It almost surprises Mithos how many times such a thing has happened, but then it's that exact characteristic that allowed him to infiltrate their group so painfully easily. Raine seems more annoyed than affected by what the illusion conjured up for the siblings: An elven woman, standing at Lloyd's not unimpressive height even slouching as much as she is, whom Colette's mind lets him know is Virginia, the half-elves' mother; and a stout man with a salt-and-pepper combover and beady eyes who is apparently the mayor of Iselia, their hometown, both stand on the other side of the display window, looking down their noses at the two captives. Raine's composure is impressive, given the pang of sympathetic hurt that wracks Colette's body at the thought of what those two people mean to her friends. And indeed, next to Raine, in stark contrast, Genis is sat curled in on himself on the ground, hands over his ears and shaking his head.

Lloyd stomps over and starts kicking at one of the windows, since his arms are still recovering from Presea and Regal's punishments. The window's made of shock-resistent material, as everyone in the city has an exphere and the display cells need to be protected from anyone who wishes to use their contents for ill, but Lloyd's boot eventually makes the smallest chip. That exphere of his - and Lloyd himself - is an impressive force to be reckoned with. Every kick is punctuated with the words "shut up", in the hope that one of the illusions would hear and heed his words, or to let his friends know they're not alone.

"You know half-elves have no place in this world," the mayor says with an angry and disgusted voice, clearly audible despite Lloyd's onslaught on the window right beside him. "If it weren't for you, Iselia could have been a happy, peaceful place."

"It's not _my_ fault there were Desians!" Genis whines, squeezing his hands tighter over his ears without effect.

"You'll blame everything on Mithos?" the mayor sneers. "How typical of a disgusting half-breed. But you're only proving my point. Your kind is the source of everything wrong with this world."

"If only that boy hadn't been born," Virginia mumbles mournfully, shaking her head. "If only none of you had been born..." She cradles a doll in her arms and presses a finger to its nose. "We should never have come here. Elves and humans were never meant to mix... I'm so sorry, my Raine..."

Raine merely flares her nostrils in response.

The mayor lays his hand on the glass and leans into it, snarling down at Genis who still tries to curl himself tighter in on himself, with no success. "If you're too selfish to die, why don't you just go with your _friend_ , Mithos, take all your fellow filthy halflings with you and leave humanity alone?" He narrows his eyes at the word 'friend', and Mithos knows he hit the nail on the head when he picked Genis' weak spot.

"Mithos probably had the right idea, separating the worlds. He just didn't take it far enough. He should have separated the humans and the elves," Virginia mumbles. "That poor child... But those mistakes can be corrected." She beams a watery smile at the doll in her arms. "If you stop your tantrum, he'll take you with him to Derris-Kharlan, to find a place for your unfortunate kind. The rest of the world doesn't have to suffer you anymore, isn't that wonderful?"

Raine rolls her eyes. She unfolds and refolds her arms. Despite her composure, her confident facade is cracking. "It would be preposterous of those left behind to advocate for a world without mana," she argues. "What a pitiful illusion."

"Since we elves came with Derris-Kharlan, Asteria and humans must have lived without its mana for some time before."

"We can do it again. Anything to be rid of your kind."

"Just accept it, child. There is no place for you in this world," Virginia coos at the doll, stroking its hair.

" _ **Shut up!**_ " Lloyd roars, his words having slowly risen in volume the closer he came to breaking the window, and reaching a crescendo when, at long last, his kicks result in a long crack that splits the window in half. There's a crater where his foot landed repeatedly and chips of glass on the floor and stuck in his boots. "You're wrong!"

Raine gives a small smile, and her rigid posture relaxes ever so slightly. Genis uncoils at the sound of Lloyd's voice, and Colette can finally see enough of his face to notice tears in his eyes. He immediately ducks back in on himself when another voice calls out.

"No, they are not wrong. Half-elves are despised and discriminated against for merely being alive. Our existence is a crime." Another Ygdrasill projection sits on the awning over the display. "We are only able to live in peace by hiding our identity or living with our own."

"That's not the half-elves' fault!" Lloyd blurts out, pausing his attack on the glass to glare wide-eyed at the projection. "People who can't accept those who are different are the ones to blame! It's because of their weak hearts!"

"And?" Yggdrasill asks dispassionately. "It changes nothing."

"We will never accept you," the mayor agrees. "As long as you live in a world of humans and elves, you will always be outcasts."

"It's hopeless, Raine. You'll just be abandoned again. As long as you are a half-elf, the world will continue to hate you."

Raine shakes her head. "The _people_ of Iselia have accepted us. There is a place for us."

This finally makes Genis realize all isn't lost, and he sits up. He slaps his cheeks to shock himself out of his panic. "And Lloyd. Lloyd would make sure we could stay anywhere," he says quietly.

Virginia gives Raine a pitying look. "You'll just be betrayed again. Because you're a half-elf."

Raine closes her eyes and brushes a strand of hair out of her face. "You may be right," she says. "But then again, you may be wrong." She holds her hand up to the glass and sighs. "I read your diary. It wasn't because of my blood that you abandoned me. It was because you were too weak of a mother to stand up to a world that hates my blood. What you did was foolish and, to an extent selfish, trusting the fate of your children to little more than a myth, but I genuinely believe you thought you did the right thing." Her lips curl into a sad smile, and the projection of her mother opens its mouth, but the only thing Colette hears is static. "I'm going to stop hating that weakness. My hatred never changed anything. In order to change the world, I must first... change myself. I'm glad I was born a half-elf. It was because of it that I met Lloyd and my other dear friends."

Virginia fades and crumbles, the mana of her being unable to keep its form now that Raine has faced her demons and overcome them.

"Professor!" Lloyd exclaims proudly. He babbles slightly, a slight rosiness on his cheeks. He's weak to praise, and being worthy of Raine Sage's respect is the highest praise he knows. "I'm... Thank you, professor!"

His face falls when the projection of Yggdrasill leaps down from the awning to kneel down next to the mayor, its expression uncharacteristically gentle and concerned as it looks at Genis.

"Genis, do you feel the same? Are you happy you were born a half-elf?"

It's so far outside of Mithos' comprehension - being glad to be born an aberration of nature, doomed to the scorn and revulsion of others?

Genis lowers his knees, changing his position to sit cross-legged with his fingers wrapped tight around his ankles. "...Because humans hate us, I hate humans," he says after a deep breath.

Lloyd's foot stops against the glass, that one particular kick having no force to it. His eyes are filled with worry.

"But I like Lloyd. And I like everyone we traveled with. Because... I think they all like me." He fidgets with his socks. "And I think that's important. Meeting other people, being open and honest with them, and getting to know them as individual people." He frowns as he keeps his gaze on the floor in front of him, likely so he doesn't have to look Yggdrasill in the eyes. "I... I don't know if you're really Mithos, or if you can hear me, but... It's easy to hate people in general, but not so much once you get to know them."

"Ridiculous," the mayor says. "Nothing will make us hate you less."

"People are always going to be weak, Genis," Yggdrasill says softly. "I want to spare you that heartache."

Is this what Genis thinks of him? It would be amusing, sickeningly sweet as it is, but it's giving the group entirely the wrong idea.

Genis shakes his head and stands up. "No, I don't think you do. If you want me to come with you, it's because you're selfish, because you just want someone on your side against the rest."

Mithos' thoughts blank for a moment. Ridiculous. Ludicrous. Preposterous. Mithos hasn't spent four thousand years fighting the world practically alone just to now need moral support from a _child_! He wants to get angry, unleash every last drop of rage he has in his crystal, but he can't. He's locked himself in so Colette could carry him to his body.

"I'm the same," Genis continues, interrupting Mithos' mental implosion. "I'm selfish, too. I was really happy when I met you, to have a friend like me. But, Mithos... You need to have friends who _aren't_ like you, too."

Yggdrasill stands as well, cocking his head to the side. "The differences between people only breed hatred," he refutes.

Genis sighs. "Just like those that hate half-elves, I get mad at humans and elves just for being who they are... But, don't you get it, Mithos? That's just going to make them hate me more! I need to bridge the gap between us, show them we have common ground."

"There is no common ground between humans, elves and half-elves," Yggdrasill and the mayor say as one.

Genis shakes his head again, and gives a real smile. "I used to think so, but when we stayed in Heimdall, before we came up here, I talked to some of the kids there and I showed them some kendama tricks, and I actually had a lot of fun," he says, gesturing with his arms to emphasize his story. "Some of those kids, they thought half-elves would be really rude, or stupid, but after meeting me, they realized I'm just another person. And I realized the same of them."

The cracks in the glass are multiplying, and glass is starting to chip off on the other side as well. It'll be only seconds before Lloyd has broken through. As if reacting to this impending rescue, the mayor's projection crumbles as well, leaving Yggdrasill's as the only one left, though it, too, is starting to fade.

"My heart was weak, too," Genis mumbles. "But thanks to Lloyd, I'm starting to get stronger."

And then the glass breaks, and Yggdrasill with it. Lloyd nods back at the rest of the group, and with confirmation the danger has finally passed, Presea and Regal widen the hole enough for Genis and Raine to step through.

After his earlier excitement, Mithos is left empty for this conclusion. He has no more emotions to spend on Genis' revelation that he actually got along with some elven children; on his inane thoughts that coming into contact with those that despise him could actually be a good thing; on how the boy proved that even at only twelve years of age, he was already so much stronger than Mithos could ever hope to be. The only thing he feels is exhaustion that goes deeper than muscle, deeper than bone, deeper even than the soul.

He knows Genis won't ever look at him with that innocent optimism, that childlike yearning again, but he can't help but wonder, _is it a sin to be weak-hearted? Not everyone's strong._ It was all he could do to keep his head above water, back in the day, by avoiding those that would do them harm. The thought of seeking out potential threats just to see if they could grow to like him was impossible. _Not everyone can stand being despised._

He doesn't even pay attention to the fight that happens after the third and last of his illusory automatons leaps into Lloyd and his friends' reach.

"I'm so glad we're all back together again," Lloyd says after the fight, and he's close for a moment, hugging everyone in turn. The sensation it gives is strong enough Mithos feels it even through his waning connection with Colette.

"Do you need a moment?" Colette asks.

There's a brief pause, then Genis says, "I'm good to go." He takes a breath. "Lloyd. Let's stop him."

Someone sighs. Based on what he knows about the group, he suspects it's Raine.

"...Not 'Let's destroy him'?"

"I'm sorry. But I keep thinking, if only Mithos would stop what he's doing and apologize to those who've been suffering like Marble. I think he wasn't putting his all into that last fight, either. He didn't even try to attack me even when he could, and he went down really quickly... So maybe he doesn't really want to do all this anymore either. An apology isn't enough for what he's done, but if he really did feel that way... I'd want to save him."

_How naïve._

"...If he really starts thinking that way, I won't stop you. But if he doesn't, I won't forgive him for hurting my best friend."

"...I understand. I'm sorry, Lloyd. And... thank you."

He lets his mind go blank, unable to muster the effort to care about anything anymore, through Lloyd completing the Derris Emblem with the material from the automaton's broken husk, through their final trek through Welgaia, through their descent into Derris-Kharlan's depths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So close now! The only thing left is the final final battle with Mithos and a little epilogue, which I'll be combining into one, if everything goes as planned.
> 
> I'm really hoping people are enjoying this! If anyone has any opinions on the changes I'm making, positive or negative, definitely let me know! I really want the way I'm writing this to improve the story while making minimal structural changes, and still make it make sense that Mithos would stop fighting in the end. I love to hear your thoughts!


	17. Revitalize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos is finally defeated.

Only the increasingly close proximity of the Great Seed's dense mana wakes Mithos. It seeps through the thick metal doors that block passage to Derris-Kharlan's innermost area: the garden.

Lloyd and his friends are in the process of eliminating its guardian, a dragon bred specifically for the task and enhanced with magitechnology, and making easy work of it.

Kratos has joined them, and is likely the reason they aren't hopelessly lost in Derris-Kharlan's labyrinthine system of paths and caverns. Lloyd has regained the use of his arms as well. Mithos will have to pull out all the stops if he wants to have any chance whatsoever. Of survival, of victory, it's the same thing now, isn't it? It's either him or them.

A deafening thud reverberates against the walls and ceilings of the open hallway, its echoes muddled yet amplified by the thick drapes of mana in the air, as the dragon falls to its many wounds.

Mere moments later, or possibly hours, the doors open, mana wafting like smoke from a blocked hearth through its maw. It's nearly stifling, gagging if he'd had a mouth, and yet it makes him feel more alive than ever.

He takes in the garden through Colette's eyes. There's nothing like it in the lands below. It's a vaguely spherical room, containing smooth rock platforms covered on all sides with bizarre vegetation, strewn about floating haphazardly in three-dimensional space, in concentric circles around the glowing core - Derris-Kharlan's own mana tree. It's smaller than the one that had grown on Asteria, and while its own output had been insufficient for a graft, it had born the seed that grew Asteria's. At least, those are the tales told by elven elders, supposedly regaled by the original Tree's Guardian Spirit itself. The flora which surrounds the Tree ranges in appearance from thick, reflective scales growing out of porous rock, to long strands that would resemble leaves if they didn't undulate rhythmically, to fluorescent flower petals completely disconnected from their stems. Nothing grows tall, but every platform is packed dense with glowing, pulsating and slithering plants, all awash in a purple glow from the planet's mana, giving the feel of being dunked underwater in an ocean of paints.

The group steps out onto a stone plaza free of vegetation, covered instead by ancient symmetrical marks made in a strange red dye and the ruined remains of decorated walls. The plaza breaks off into nothingness after a few dozen paces, though crumbling architecture suggests once it had continued on. The only thing time hasn't destroyed beyond recognition is the red paint, the designs of which lead visitors to the garden towards its center, guiding them to an endless plummet if not for the transportation circle Mithos installed when he started spending more time here.

Derris-Kharlan's Tree is surrounded by a similar plaza, though the area immediately around the Tree is covered with small buds and shoots, heedless of the fact they grow through rock instead of soil - as there is no soil on Derris-Kharlan. Similar ruined structures also encircle it, much like they do the entrance, steadily reducing in level of decay as they reach an ornately carpeted dais which holds a completely unblemished throne made of an unknown material even Mithos hasn't managed to locate any more of. The throne must have at one time been used by elven kings and queens, though Mithos mostly found its deep purple cushions comfortable to sit on while thinking, and it's no surprise to see his new body leaning against its back rest, looking up at the undulating ribbons of mana that is the Seed.

"The Great Seed is just up ahead. Mithos is there, too," Colette says, her voice at last cutting through the heavy atmosphere.

"Is everyone ready?" Lloyd asks, looking back at his friends one final time.

He shouldn't have bothered. The time for second thoughts has long passed, all of them have already steeled their nerves twice over and prepared for the worst.

"Whatever happens, I don't want to have any regrets," Genis says with a quiet determination. "So, for a world in which everyone will be able to live freely, no matter who they are. Humans and elves and even us... I won't hold back."

Raine nods and puts her hand on Genis' shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. "We'll show him what half-elves are really capable of," she says.

"I will dismantle this system, in which we're all entered in a rigged genetic lottery, so that no more innocent children are forced to sacrifice themselves." Regal stares at his manacles. "If I can ensure no one else has to go through this... Maybe it will be enough."

Kratos nods stiffly. "To atone for allowing this twisted world to exist, I will fight with everything I have. And win."

"I'll prove - to him, to myself, to the rest of Mizuho, to anyone who believes in me - that being scared, even being a coward, won't stop me from doing what has to be done. That it's not too late to make things right." Sheena catches Kratos' eye as she says the last part, which he acknowledges with a slightly less stiff nod.

Zelos has already strolled past Lloyd towards the teleporter. "The people that I like and the people that I don't both have the right to live in the same world as I do," he says with a shrug. "That's the way things should be. So count me in. I won't run from this one. Besides." He looks over his shoulder with a devious grin. "He still owes me plenty of hurt."

Presea is next to him, silent but looking at Lloyd as if she's waiting for him.

"You know my answer," Colette says, holding out her hand for Lloyd to take so they can step into the circle together.

The sight that awaits them on the other side is unsettling. Mithos' own lack of emotions allows the entirety of Colette's to flow into him, and it's like being in a hall of mirrors. Mithos, through Colette's eyes, sees his own body on the throne, blank and empty. It reminds her of when she'd lost her own heart, and the voids stack one on top of the other, each more vast and suffocating than the last, to the point that it feels like if he doesn't act out, scream out, _get out_ , his sense of self will collapse upon itself.

So he does. With all the collective desperation of thousands of years of nothing compounding on itself through a closed feedback loop, he tears his crystal from Colette's palm and into the crest around his body's neck. For a split second, his mind shorts from a simultaneous over- and underload of his senses. He can see again, the experience of colors and shapes alien and familiar at the same time, but he's lost most of his intuitive understanding of his surroundings, and when he sees the little blonde girl in front of him, he momentarily forgets that's not him anymore. Sounds are equally strange, and he has to follow a path of logic to combine his eyes' information of people's moving mouths with the noises in his ears before he understands that his adversaries are talking.

It takes him another moment to realize he has limbs and facial features again, and to remember how to move them. So it's with surprising difficulty that he schools his expression into a grin, and raises his hand to his Cruxis Crystal. He can only hope it comes off as effortless as he intends.

"...I need to thank you for going through all the trouble to bring me back here. I'm finally myself again."

Lloyd and Colette exchange looks, only briefly but dense with information. An apology, acceptance of the fact that what happened doesn't matter and the determination to see things through no matter what. Mithos no longer rides Colette's thoughts like his own, but he's gained an understanding, one he can't shake however much he wants to.

"Mithos," Genis says from somewhere in the back. His voice is steady, but only just, and his eyes are downcast. "Martel is already dead."

Mithos doesn't have to look at the ghost of his sister to still be able to feel her mana in the crystal at the core of the Seed.

"That's not true! Martel is alive, just as I lived on in the Cruxis Crystal."

Presea shakes her head. "That's not living. That's just existing as a lifeless being." After Colette, she may have the most experience with the matter, but it doesn't change the fact that "living" and "existing" are hardly so different anyway.

"What's wrong with that? After all, in our bodies flow the blood of humans and elves - the bloods of those that despise us. We're better off casting aside such filth and become lifeless beings."

"That's what you really want?" Genis asks, his voice a whisper. A pity he seems so against the idea. Even after all this, he could have made an excellent angel.

"Of course. Watch." Mithos raises his hands in front of him and uses light magic to illustrate some of the formulas he came up with to edit his form. "When you become a lifeless being you can control your own body." He gestures at one of the formulas as ethereal, rainbow-colored wings sprout from his back, and another when his form de-ages back to its fourteen-year-old original in a matter of seconds. "Its senses are much improved over those of humans and elves. The exphere can convert mana to energy, so you don't need to eat or sleep. I can even choose to inhibit my emotions. It's objectively the perfect form. Everyone should become lifeless beings." He drops his arms back at his sides. "I told you before. The only way to eliminate discrimination is for everyone to become the same race."

Lloyd sighs and shakes his head, his expression one of clear disappointment. "What you hope for is nothing but a dream, Mithos. Discrimination comes from the heart."

Genis slowly makes his way to the front of the group, where he's at a disadvantage should a fight break out. Either he has too much faith in his friends, or in Mithos. Either way, he's going to be disappointed.

"He's right, Mithos. It's the weakness of people's hearts that causes discrimination. Looking down upon others while placing themselves too high..." He fidgets with the hem of his shirt. "Remiel was exactly like that, and he was an angel..." A crease appears between his brows at the mention of that name.

_That was different_ , Mithos wants to argue, but does he really have any solid evidence to back that up with? He thought he should have been one of the elite, misunderstanding its fundamental nature, and treated those he considered below him like dirt. To Lloyd's ears, that would sound exactly like the thing Mithos had sworn to eradicate.

"You do the same thing!" Sheena blurts. "You look down on humans and elves, treating them like cattle. That's the weakness of your heart."

"That's hardly systematic discrimination," Mithos spits. "That's merely a taste of their own medicine."

Regal clears his throat, able to elicit a rapt audience with a mere gesture. As expected from a high-rolling company president. "Regardless, even if people become lifeless beings, nothing will change. Discrimination will continue."

"So you want us to just keep living like this, hidden or nomadic because nobody accepts us?" Mithos can't believe this. They can spout their idealistic drivel all they want, but without concrete answers, that's all it is. Even at the very end, Mithos is the only one with any solutions. "My sister and I were driven from our homes more times than I can count! Exire is a floating mirage because every half-elven settlement on the ground was destroyed! Where do you want us to go?!"

"You can live anywhere you like."

Mithos stares at Lloyd. Grabs hold of the boy's warm chestnut eyes with his own acid green ones, and just stares for a good half minute, just to determine if he's actually that dumb, or if this is all some elaborate prank.

"Don't make me laugh," he says, still not entirely sure.

"I'm serious. Anywhere is fine. If you aren't doing anything wrong, you should just live proudly in the open."

Mithos's stare intensifies to a glare. He notices a faint metallic taste on his lip, prompting him to realize he bit down on it hard enough to break the skin, and his entire jaw is tight. He has to force himself to take a deep breath before he next speaks, but even that isn't enough to keep the exhasperation from his voice.

"...It's _because_ we couldn't do that... that I... that _we_ wanted a place of our own!"

"Uh-uh." Zelos wags a finger, leaning an arm on Lloyd's shoulder. There's a smile on his face, but his eyes are cold. "Sorry, but don't act like you're the only victim here. It doesn't even come close to justifying all the things that you've done."

"Mithos, I understand why you did what you did, but I also understand that it is not an excuse," Kratos says, his voice stern but gentle like so many years ago when Mithos was still his student. As if after all this time he still has things to teach. "It is merely a motive, not a justification."

"What you've done caused meaningless suffering and death to countless people. Can you feel their pain?" The one time the quiet girl speaks up and it's that.

Mithos wants to scream. "It's only meaningless because you fools are trying to stop me!"

Raine shakes her head, the epitome of a disappointed parent or teacher. A concept Mithos only recently, and through Colette, came to put any meaning to. "People can change. Even if they don't change right away. Months, years - as time passes, change is inevitable. Zelos has made his first step, as has the village of Iselia. What you're doing is merely running away."

"Maybe not everything can be forgiven. But one can try to atone for one's sins." Colette has her hands folded in front of her, and she lifts her eyes to meet his, pleading wordlessly for him to please understand. "Can't you feel it in your heart? The Goddess known as conscience..."

There's nothing to understand. Their ideals are too far separated, and Lloyd's too little grounded in reality. This pathetic, drawn-out argument has left Mithos' face contorted into a snarl, and he's exhausted the last dregs of his patience. There's only one way to finish this, and they all knew from the start that words weren't going to be enough. He can still try to get the last one in, though.

"Do you think I'm going to beg for forgiveness? Ridiculous," he growls. "Humans and elves should be the one to beg. They're the cause of it all. You want to remind someone of their conscience? Start with them." He balls his fists, starts gathering mana. "There is no Goddess. So I will continue to pursue my ideals." He's not thinking anymore, his hands find their way into his hair, clutching at the strands in front of his ears, pulling. His chest is on fire. "If there is no place where I can live, and if I've been denied my Age of Lifeless Beings, then the only thing left for me is to build a new world on Derris-Kharlan. A world just for my sister and me!"

Something shatters, and the fire in his chest spreads through his body. Four thousand years of anguish, torment and grief flood every cell, weaving through them like the expansive canopy of the Kharlan Tree. When he thinks, his body has already moved. When he touches something, it flies backwards. Mana flows through his veins as easily as blood, letting him fling spells left and right without even an incantation for the conduit. His limbs scream, they're stretched too far, their mass too dense, and the mana burns inside. In that moment he is every second he has ever lived, all at once. Even Lloyd and his friends are nothing to him now. He could run - no, fly - circles around them, swat them like the bugs they are, now that the limits that keep this body whole have been released. They can try to fight, scurry like ants over the carpet, lick their wounds like dogs, and raise their hackles like cornered cats, but it doesn't matter. It's over.

It's over.

As sudden as the rush came on him, so too does it leave, and it leaves him motionless. He's halfway across the plaza, rushing for one of them - he hasn't even paid any attention to which one - when his legs stop working. He wants to hold his hands up to break his fall, but they refuse to answer him as well. He makes a furious attempt at dragging his body over the battlefield, himself resembling a worm more than those he demeaned with the term, but even that gets him nowhere. He's stuck, stranded in the middle of his enemies, betrayed by everyone including his own body. It's all he can do to growl impotently.

Where the area was a flurry of activity mere moments before, now there's a heavy silence as everyone stands stock still, smoking craters and cracking ice the only indication a fight had even been going on. Everyone still has their weapons drawn and raised, guard up in case this unexpected turn of events happens to be a feint, though Genis breaks off in the middle of a chant.

The silence stretches uncomfortably, Mithos unable to move and the others unwilling. It feels like forever that Mithos stares at the same stone he fell face-first on, long enough for the splatter of his blood to burn itself into his mind. Another memory he won't be able to erase.

Finally, after what feels like another four thousand years, footsteps approach, and Lloyd nudges his boot into Mithos' side. He doesn't even have the energy to complain about it anymore. If it weren't for the air still exiting his nose, he could have been dead.

He should have been dead.

Instead, Lloyd flips him over so he faces the purple sky. Mithos refuses to look at him, choosing to focus on the wisps of mana that pass by, or more infrequently an island overgrown with alien plants.

"What are you playing at?" Lloyd asks, his voice hard and guarded, when he still doesn't move.

Mithos doesn't answer him, either. Where his muscles were on fire before, now they only feel numb. He doesn't even know if his mouth is open or closed, and he can't feel a difference when he tries to change it. He's not sure he could even blink if he still needed to.

"He overworked his body," Kratos explains. "Normally, the body limits the amount of force it can put out, because at full capacity, it would destroy itself. Expheres increase the amount of force a body can take exponentially, but also the full capacity. Mithos unlocked that limit, but it seems his body reached its breaking point before the battle's conclusion."

Lloyd hums thoughtfully. "So that's as strong as he gets?" He receives an affirmative grunt. "Then maybe now we can talk without him flying off the handle."

Mithos manages to force a groan out of his throat. "You've won. Finish me," he tries to say, but it comes out strange because his lips won't move, and his tongue is stiff.

"...Hinish...?" Lloyd repeats confused before he realizes. "No! No, I promised Genis, if I could spare you, I would."

Just for him? Hypocrite. What happened to 'there's no meaning in dying'? Mithos would laugh if his body would let him. "Gonna keep me like a pet?" he attempts instead.

Lloyd just blinks at him.

Mithos lets his eyes slip out of focus, the best he can do without the use of the muscles in his eyelids, and sighs. He doesn't do anything without a plan, so even now, when his goal is to die or die trying, he thinks of how to structure that. He'll have to wait until his body recovers, because none of Lloyds friends will have the mercy to end it for him. Zelos might have the guts, but he probably holds a grudge and will want to watch him suffer the indignity of living with his loss for as long as possible.

Lloyd really does block him every step of the way. All the way to the end.

"Mithos... I know you really believed your way was the only way." Genis sits down next to Mithos, his voice directed upwards to the sky. "And I understand why you don't want to believe in people. I really do."

'Believed'. 'Was'. 'Want'. _I don't think you do._

"So I'm not going to try to convince you. I'm going to say that we're stronger, so you have to listen to us."

Mithos slides his eyes over towards Genis, seeing that the boy has his gaze directed skywards, almost pointely avoiding Mithos himself.

"I think you need to make up for the hurt you caused. And I want you to see the reunited world. I want you to give it enough time to prove itself."

That probably sounds wonderful to Genis, but to Mithos, it sounds like hell. He has nothing left. Four thousand years of work gone to waste. He'd been looking forward to oblivion when his work was done. He breathes out sharply through his nose.

They're not going to be able to stop him. They can take away his goals, his sister - _again_ \- even most of his agency, but they only need to let their attention slip for even a moment, and he can take control for those final moments. It's a surprising relief to realize that. He may have nothing else left, but at least he has that.

He may as well give them what they want.

His eyes unfocus again as he needs his attention inwards, searching for a shred of mana to send to the Seed with a message. His body can't hold as much mana in its current state, only about as much as a particularly resistent human, so it takes some effort, and he's sure he won't be able to retain consciousness once he sends it off, but that's something of a relief as well.

In the end, even giving simple instructions is too much, and he has to make do with only two words: "Help Lloyd".

 

* * *

 

It's warm. Like being swaddled tight in thick blankets. He has the vague idea of a rockin motion, gentle and soothing, and the feeling of lightness. There's something else, something that bleeds into his being, but entirely formless. An emotion? It, too, is warm. It reminds him of his sister. Something within him tells him he should understand what it is.

Despite the feeling of weightlessness and Sylph's influence all around, Mithos feels grounded, more now when his consciousness is split in two than it had when he was still one. There's no pressure, no driving need anymore, and his mind is empty as he rides along with Lloyd as the boy undoes all his hard work.

Lloyd's fingers curl around the Eternal Sword. Its power flows through him with a cool nostalgia, a gentle river coursing inexhaustibly under his skin. Mithos had forgotten that feeling, that subtle strength long having ebbed from his touch when he still wielded the blade.

_Mithos?_ Origin appears surprised to sense him. _You're lending the new pact-makers your aid?_

Mithos has no response. He doesn't have the energy. He doesn't have anything anymore, just the tiny, vague order he gave himself after his loss.

_I see. Nevertheless, your support carries immeasurable weight to these children._

Lloyd draws on his unshakeable core as he makes his wish of the Sword and the Seed, to rejuvenate the land and restore Derris-Kharlan to its place in the newly rejoined Asteria's atmosphere. The hopes and prayers of Lloyd's friends, as well as the more tenuous wishes of those of the worlds' people who've been swayed by their passion, meld with Mithos' mana, using its small, singular purpose as a guidepost to assist Lloyd in his monumental task.

The Seed initially rebuffs the desire projected onto it through the Sword, still in the thrall of Mithos' earlier yearning to take his sister and "leave this filthy world behind", but when it's countered by a different command from the same origin, it relents. Mithos' new wish is a feather-light touch compared to the forceful yank of his previous, but the Seed accepts the override as if the difference in strength went the other way, and stops pulling Derris-Kharlan out of the liminal space between the two worlds.

The seed unfurls its ribbons, a moebius strip of mana that stretches wide inside the garden, expands past its walls until it can no longer be contained. It diffuses into a shimmering mist, each separate mote a complete magical formula containing infinite multitudes, which coats both worlds simultaneously, enveloping everything in a dense sheet of pure mana, which appears a blinding light to its mortal inhabitants.

Its Spirits experience everything at the same time, and Mithos is apparently counted among them, since his consciousness momentarily exists in pure mana. He feels, his mana part of the world's larger whole, the tectonic plates that house the various continents merge together, the rocks and metals of their crusts split and crash together like waves on the sea, stone and fire tossed in the air like spray. The ocean itself changes just as violently, its tides change from one moment to the next due to the shifting landmasses, and it boils and sizzles where it comes into contact with the earth's molten core, destroying old islands or giving birth to new ones. And the air is in flux as well. Hurricane winds whip up and die down in a matter of moments; clouds form, burst apart in a spray of rain or sleet, or swirl aimless but rapid through the sky only to dissipate without a trace. The chaos takes less than a minute, but it leaves everything thoroughly drained.

The blinding light fades and reveals a world made whole, both its moons in the sky back on the same dimensional plane, but the air feels stretched too thin and stifling. Despite Mithos' frugality with mana throughout his time as conductor of the world, there simply isn't enough to fully sustain it all. Any increments Sylvarant made to catch up to Tethe'Alla's level of technology would send already teetering balance crashing into the abyss.

But that's what the Great Seed is for. It reforms the visible ribbons that make up its shape, hovering high in the sky over the Holy Ground where the war was waged that destroyed its parent and waits.

The elemental Summon Spirits manifest, bathing the surrounding area - which contains Lloyd and his exphere - in soothing mana infused with hope for the future. There's a warmth to it that has nothing to do with temperature, and it's a feeling Mithos has sorely missed for thousands of years. He can feel his mana reach out for it, yearning, and he's too tired to resist. He follows the thread of the Spirits' wishes to the Seed, the warmth increasing to a scorching heat that consumes his entire being, triggering a burning nostalgia for the days he spent with his sister as they tried to navigate the wartorn landscape to carve out a place for themselves. He doesn't understand; those days were hellish, each day dedicated to survival in a world that either passively or actively wanted them dead. But she had been with him, and maybe that's what he misses.

His plea to himself, to "help Lloyd", which carries the hopes and dreams of everyone whose lives he touched on his journey, entwines with the desire to "make a world where humans, elves, and those like us could all live together", that he now knows was his sister's after all, and a silent wish for Genis to never have to become like him that he hadn't known he has. Mithos' mana is sent along with the Spirits' and the combined forces of want are absorbed by the Seed, as its basis for growth. The Seed splits its ribbons apart into petals of thick, solid mana which crash down on the battlefield. Buds and shoots sprout from cracks in stone where shards of mana land, but the majority of the seed is absorbed by a small figure standing at its center, the exact place Mithos remembers he once stood between armies to broker peace.

She takes the petals, absorbs them, becomes envelops in them, and the purpose for which she was once created becomes fulfilled. She takes on the wishes the Seed was entrusted with, the souls of the countless lives sacrificed for its purpose to be fulfilled - Martel included - and becomes something even more.

When the rain of mana clears, a small sapling can be seen popping up from the previously brown and dry earth, now lush and green, and crouched over it, gently stroking a leaf with a delicate finger, is a perfect resemblance of Mithos' sister.

Mithos's mana, its purpose fulfilled, returns to his body, which has recovered just enough to allow him to stand. His steps towards the new Tree are tentative and wobbling, and he stumbles more than a handful of times, but he manages to make his way there, just in time to hear Lloyd's loud voice make another spirited declaration.

"If the tree starts to wither, I'll make sure, we won't let it die!"

"Then Lloyd, on behalf of all living things, I want you to give this tree a new name, as a proof of the pact."

She even has his sister's voice. It's almost too painful to bear. Mithos is too lost in his memories to listen to the words the Spirit says next, the sound the only thing that pierces the wall he's put up around himself.

"Lloyd, pick a name for us, a name for everyone's tree," Colette's chipper voice startles him out of his thoughts. So she's with him, too. He wonders if any other angels are, too.

"So this tree is the link that connects the world..." Lloyd mumbles. "Okay, I got it! This tree's name is..."

Mithos loses control over his legs and collapses on the ground as he hears it.

_Yggdrasill._

His name. Her name. He doesn't understand. After everything he did, _why_?

A hand is placed on his shoulder. He whips his head up as another is extended to him to help him up. Origin has the other two of his arms folded behind his back. Mithos stares at him, unable to keep up with unbelievable thing happening after unbelievable thing after unbelievable thing.

_I am still disappointed_ , he says, his expression unreadable as always. _But, as I said, I will follow the new pact-makers' lead and try to place my faith in people again. You are no exception._

Mithos still doesn't have any words, but he slowly extends his hand towards Origin's and allows the Spirit to raise him to his feet.

"I'm not..." he tries. "I just..." He doesn't know what he's not, or what he just. His words stop dead in his throat.

_It matters not. So long as you don't interfere, your motivations are irrelevant._

Mithos nods mutely.

Origin turns his back on him now that he's back on his feet. He looks at his new master, and from Mithos' admittedly limited understanding of Origin's emotions, he looks a little bit proud.

Origin looks back to Mithos one final time before he lets the mana that make up his physical form return to the Eternal Sword.

_That feeling you could not place, Mithos? It is_ love _._

So that's what he's forgotten all these years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for joining me for this! It's been a wild ride. I hope Mithos' journey to maybe not destroying everything makes sense the way I wrote it, and that my headcanons and alterations have been enjoyable!
> 
> I've been working on a sequel (once again completely ignoring DotNW) of some things that could happen with Mithos still alive... The thing I've been writing so far is mostly a high school fic that follows Mithos and Genis as they mature into actual adults (My personal interpretation is that Mithos' development has effectively been stalled since he became an angel, making him effectively still a child in an adult's body with a boatload of bad experiences. No wonder he's so messed up.), but I also have enough ideas for after they graduate. So if you liked this fic, stay tuned for that!

**Author's Note:**

> This is part 1 of my Mithos lives AU. This part features all the things that happen in-game. Part 2 will have things from after, and will completely disregard ToS2, because it is an abomination. Maybe as a standalone it would have been fine but not as a Symphonia sequel.


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